On display
Image of Gallery in South Kensington

Drinking Horn

ca. 1615 (made)
Artist/Maker
Unknown
Place of origin
Franeker (made)

With silver mounts engraved with hunting scenes. 2 coats of arms on the mounts. Moupiece engraved with foliage and with a whistle built in.

Object details

Category
Metalwork
Object type
Drinking horn
Materials and techniques
Silver mounts, horn
Brief description
Dutch. Friesland. About 1615; Silver, Continental
Physical description
With silver mounts engraved with hunting scenes. 2 coats of arms on the mounts. Moupiece engraved with foliage and with a whistle built in.
Dimensions
  • Height: 18.50cm
  • Length: 57.50cm
  • Width: 15.00cm
Marks and inscriptions
Under lip. A gate; a bell (town mark of Franeker?), M (date letter?) and a crowned V in an escutcheon (probably a 19th century Dutch import mark). The V and another unidentified mark repeated on the mouthpiece.
Gallery label
(26/11/2002)
Silver Gallery:
Ceremonial horns were popular in the Middle Ages and continued to be made in Holland during the 16th century. This one is mounted in silver which is engraved around the lip with hunting scenes and coats of arms. The mount at the point of the horn is made as a whistle. 17th-century still life paintings, such as those by Willem Kalf in the 1650s, show that archers' guilds like the St. Sebastian's Guild in Amsterdam, often kept hunting horns as part of their ceremonial silver.
Object history
Label: mark a gate. Friesland, about 1615.
Production
Maker unidentified
Collection
Metalwork Collection
Accession number
M.45-1954

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Record createdFebruary 9, 2004
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O91479/drinking-horn-unknown/
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