Silver, parcel-gilt, Spain, Lerida, ca.1525-30

Chalice, consisting of a bell-shaped bowl, a hexagonal stem with a central protruding knop resembling six ribbed beads and a six-lobed foot. Two of the lobes are chased with leaves and a single lobe with the Cross hung with Instruments of the Passion.

Dr W.L. Hildburgh Bequest

The Spanish Church
The Catholic church dominated public and private life in Spain. Money and labour were lavished on religious art and images played a central role in daily worship. To ensure that goldsmiths focused on work for the crown and the church, the authorities brought in a series of sumptuary laws that limited the secular display of gems and precious metals.

By 1550 the silver mines in Peru and Mexico were generating enormous wealth for Spain and feeding the traditional taste for massive silver forms. They included the custodia, a towering architectural canopy that was unique to Spain. It was paraded through parishes during the Corpus Christi festival to display the Sacred Host (consecrated bread). The custodia embodied many characteristics of Spanish church plate. It was sculptural, highly visible and richly imaginative in design.

With the Counter Reformation, Spain became a triumphant defender of a revitalised Catholic faith. Silver altar vessels and entire altars, processional crosses, custodias and sanctuary lamps frequently appeared in goldsmiths' contracts.

The chalice is one of the most important vessels of the Catholic church. It contains the wine consecrated by the priest during the service of Mass. In Catholic belief the wine miraculously transforms into the blood of Christ during this service, and so chalices were usually made from precious metals, to reflect the precious status of their contents.

Spanish goldsmiths demonstrated great inventiveness in the design of church silver. The knop halfway down the stem of this chalice from Lérida resembles ribbed beads from a rosary (a chain of beads used by Catholics as an aide-memoire to help count through a sequence of prayers). The protruding knop was designed to help the priest hold the chalice securely.

M.201-1956