Chalice

This chalice’s base is sexfoil and has a band of tiny ribs running around the bottom. Ribbons with hanging roses and two-winged cherubim/seraphim with touching faces alternate with one another on its convex, repoussé lower section, and there are shells at the convergence of the lobes. There are ribbons and floral decorations mixed on the conical stem-like section of the upper base. At the top of this runs a row of hanging leaves, and a collar decorated with roses indicates the beginning of the stem. Double angel heads can be seen on the inverted pear-shaped node. The calix of the flared cup has repoussé decoration similar to the base, which depicts cherubim with touching faces. A laurel wreath runs around the top of this, from which grows a crenellation of erect leaves.

There is a master’s mark from 1721on the horizontal foot of the chalice. It contains three letters in an arched frame, but the separate lower letter is fragmentary. The letter combination “MIC” could certainly be that of Michal Josef Cocsell (cf. STEHLÍKOVÁ, Dana: Z pokladů litoměřické diecéze III. Umělecké řemeslo 13.–19. století. Praha, 1997, 148.). Cocsell was born in Vienna and worked in the Old Town of Prague starting in 1717, even fulfilling important aristocratic and church commissions (Biografický slovník českých zemí 9. Praha, 2008, 441). The city mark has only survived in a fragmentary manner on the object, but it is similar to examples with three towers from Prague at around this time (cf. ROSENBERG, Marc: Der Goldschmiede Merkzeichen, 4. Frankfurt am Main, 1928, 587, Nr. 9315.).

This chalice came to the Hungarian National Museum from the collection of Miklós Jankovich. Nothing more precise about the origin of the object has emerged from the catalogue that was compiled during the lifetime of the collector. It was dated there to the end of the 17th century based on its ornamentation (C o n s i g n a t i o Scyphorum, Phialarum, Poculorum, Scutellarum, Cyathorum, Calicum et Cantharorum e Collectione Sp. Dni Nicolai a Jankovich Museo Nationali Hungarico resignatorum. Item 140, Central Database of the Hungarian National Museum). It was passed on to the Museum of Applied Arts from the Hungarian National Museum in 1936 or 1937.

by Szilveszter Terdik