Tankard with Representation of Christ and the Devil

Known as an ‘Interims-Schnelle’
Siegburg, ca 1570
Pewter mount: Master TG
Cologne, ca 1600
Siegburg stoneware; mount: pewter, master maker’s mark TG in the lid
Inscriptions ‘DAS VNKRVT / WILL ICH AVS / ROTEN VND / WERFEN ES INS FEVR’, ‘PACK DICH / TEVFEL IN / INTRVM’; ‘DROITI / ANLAIT’
Marks in the pewter lid
Height 37 cm, diameter at bottom 9.5 cm

Provenance: France, private collection

The tall and slender tankard was made in the western German city of Siegburg from between 1560 and 1590 and fitted with a pewter mount in Cologne. What makes this drinking vessel so special is its unusual iconography: to the right of the handle Jesus is depicted driving out the Antichrist, who is portrayed as a winged demon with horns, goat’s feet and a satyr mask growing out of his groin. The next scene shows Christ standing at the foot of a tree with liturgical vessels and by hacking at the tree’s root with an axe. On the other side of the tree a bishop and three monks are using long-handled crutches to support a branch from which a letter of indulgence dangles. The scenes represented should be interpreted as satirising Catholic practices, especially the Catholic liturgy, and the remission of sins through the issuance of indulgences. Furthermore, the tankard alludes to an historic event: the ‘Augsburg Interim’. After the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V defeated the Schmalkaldic League, the Augsburg Diet passed the ‘Augsburg Interim’ in 1548 that made some concessions to the Protestants, including allowing Communion under both kinds, but also forced them to reintroduce the Catholic ceremonies to divine service. Since the interim solution was hated by Lutherans and Catholics alike, the compromise was vehemently opposed by both sides. Made at the workshop of a Protestant master potter, the present tankard is a rare testimony to the confessionalisation era of Protestant Reformation history.