Silver, Continental

Covered beaker with tall cylindrical body tapering downwards, the rim richly decorated with mouldings, gilt engraved strapwork and scrollwork on body, the foot a fluted drum, the lid hinged, the handle cast.

Exhibitions:
On display in Gallery 21 until 14 August 2000

From Catalogue of Scandinavian and Baltic Silver, RW Lightbown, V&A, 1975, p233: Tankards of this form are typical of the Baltic lands in the second half of the sixteenth century. From an illustration of 2 made in Riga by Lambert Goldenstedt, who was a master there in the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth (reproduced in A. Buchholtz, Goldschmiedearbeiten in Livland, Estland und Kurland, Lubeck 1892, pl. 1, pp. 7-8) it is evident that the present tankard originally had a tall cast thumbpiece, probably of cartouche form, whose loss has been disguised by the insertion of the oblong piece above the hinge. Evidently too the knop is a late substitution for a spool-shaped pedestal on which stood a small figure. Otherwise this magnificent tankard is an impressive example of its kind.
The inscription records its later presentation by the Russian government and official nobleman Ivan Andreevich Miloslavsky to the Monastery of Kirzhack, which was founded at the end of the fourteenth century and closed in 1764. Ivan Andreevich Miloslavsky became boyarin in 1657-58. He was previously an official in the Petitions Department in 1648-49, in the Pharmaceutical Department from 1655, and from 1649-63 was also in the ‘Yamsky’ (coachman) Department. He was related to Ilia Danilovich, father-in-law of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. He died in 1663.
M.31-1961

Baltic (modern Latvia); Welby: ca. 1600-10

M.31-1961