Item 3079

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A monumental solid silver German stein tankard.

This is a finely worked stein in the Hanau styling. It was crafted  in Germany c.1890. The scenes depicted ,as with all Hanau silver pieces, are classical in inspiration drawing from Greek/Nordic and various other legends and mythological references. This stein appears to depict mermen blowing their horns and mermaids playing harps to summon the ‘human’ folk to come together meet and frolic (usually for the wine harvest).The front scene depicts exactly this, the human folk coming together .As with all Hanau silver these scenes are ideological and not true representations of any particular one story or legend.

The very nature of the Hanau silver movement makes it extremely hard to pinpoint a maker as these pieces were marked with pseudo marks that are very difficult(at times impossible)to attribute to an exact maker.

It is usually the quality/silver gauge ,casting and the chasing /embossing that will point to the quality of these pieces most of which were commission works and hence were very expensive by nature.

A piece of this size and quality(originally this piece would have been fully gilded)would have been the type of piece usually only commissioned by the very best houses/estates of the period as it would have been an expensive item to start with and then to commission to have it fully gilded in 1890’s would have show an extra level of opulence and finesse.

Stands 39cm tall.