Literature: C. Coppinger, Ambre: Mémoire du temps, Paris 2009, pp. 112-113, illus.

Note: This beautiful silver-gilt-mounted amber tankard is elaborately carved and engraved with eight oblong panels that alternate between figures and scrolling foliage, the figures representing allegories of the Five Senses. The panels alternate between figures and scrolling foliage. The whole is further embellished with beetles, birds and bear hunting scenes in the lower register. The amber handle is carved in the form of a winged grotesque with a shell-shaped thumb piece. The cover, also composed of eight panels, with alternating portraits of men and women and kings and queens, and bunches of fruit. The cover is surmounted by a domed lid with flowers and enclosing a double-faced “cameo” in white amber representing Vanity (a woman gazing in a mirror) on the interior and carved with an embracing couple on the exterior. The underside of the mug includes the portrait of a man drinking beer.

Translucent and jewel-like, amber lends itself to the carving of luxurious works of art. Its origins were mythologized in Ovid's Metamorphoses, where the mourning sisters of Phaeton, the god struck down to earth by Jupiter's thunderbolt, wept for so long that their tears turned to amber. It was only later that amber’s rather more prosaic origins in fossilized resin were discovered.

During the Renaissance and Baroque periods, there was an unprecedented rise in interest and use of amber for decorative objects. In northern Germany the prestige of amber was such that it became a symbol of power and wealth, and was called Prussian Gold (Preußische Gold). Along the Baltic coast, in Kolberg, Stolp and Danzig, guilds of artisans were formed who worked artfully with amber; its use was limited almost exclusively to luxury objects and diplomatic and royal gifts. The number of preserved pieces of amber carving is limited because of the relative fragility of the material.

In the first half of the 17th century, Königsberg, today's Kaliningrad, former capital of Prussia, became the dominant artistic center for amber production with its most distinguished artist, Georg Schreiber, active between approximately 1607 and 1643. His work was inspired by Italian Renaissance motifs, including grotesques, harpies, masks, and architectural elements, and was fitted with bronze or silver-gilt mounts with the Königsberg hallmark.

The present tankard belongs to a group of vessels, categorized by Alfred Rohde in his 1937 study, with panels of figural decoration representing the Virtues or Vices. Rohde attributed this group to Jacob Heise and his workshop, which Tait corroborated. The motifs of putti, animals, scrolling foliage and birds with fruit appear variously on all the tankards in the group. The figures of the Virtues on the vessels appear to be based on the same designs. A very similar tankard from the Châteaux d’Eltz in Wierschem, Germany (fig. 1) is also mounted with bands pierced with oblong rectangles interspersed with pierced dots; the foot is embellished with gadroons and the thumbpiece is in the shape of a shell, like the present piece. However, the handle on the Eltz example is simplified and may be a restoration.

Fig. 1 Attributed to Jacob Heise, Amber tankard with silver-gilt mounts. Châteaux d’Eltz in Wierschem, Germany.

Jacob Heise was the son of a Königsberg amber turner and is known by three signed and dated works, the earliest dated 1654. One of his signed works, a shell-shaped cup, is in the Dresden Grünes Gewölbe and is dated 1659 and was a gift from the Elector of Brandenburg Frederick William to John George II of Saxony.

Another tankard of similar type, decorated with eight panels incorporating the Virtues and also ascribed to Heise was offered in these rooms in London 8 December 2009, lot 80. Like the present piece, the lid is inset with an amber “cameo” of a woman with a glass of wine, a jug surrounded by foliage and putti mounting sea creatures. The interior of the lid includes an opaque amber “cameo” with a man holding a cup of wine; the handle is carved in the shape of a term with the head of a woman. Two other tankards ascribed to Heise, although lacking the pierced mounts, beautifully carved with figures surrounded by scrolling foliage are known, one is in the British Museum, The Waddesdon Bequest (WB.229) and another with Galerie Kugel, Paris.

Carved amber tankard and cover with silver-gilt mounts, German, probably Königsberg (East Prussia), 1640-1660, British Museum, The Waddesdon Bequest (WB.229). © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Related Literature: A. Rohde, Bernstein: ein deutscher Werkstoff: seine künstlerische Verarbeitung von Mittelalter bis zum 18. Jahrhundert, Berlin Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft, 1937, pp. 39 - 41, figs.119-124 and 130 - 133;
H. Tait, The Waddesdon Bequest : the legacy of Baron Ferdinand Rothschild to the British Museum, London, 1981, pp.91-92, pl.XVIA & VXIB;
H. Tait, The Waddesdon Bequest in the British Museum, Bd, III, London, 1991, no.12, pp.142-160, pl.4, fig.172;
W. Seipel, Bernstein für Thron und Altar : das Gold des Meeres in fürstlichen Kunst- und Schatzkammern, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Milan 2005, no. 20, pp. 50-51;
J. Kappel, Bernsteinkunst. Aus dem Grünen Gewölbe, exhibition catalogue, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 12 March - 28 August 2005, no. 12, pp. 64 - 66;
A. Kugel and R. Kulka, Amber, Treasures from the Baltic Sea 16th - 18th Century, Galerie Kugel, Paris, 2023, no. 17, pp. 212 - 217.