Hedwig glass
Hedwig glasses or Hedwig beakers are a type of glass beaker originating in the
All 14 of the complete Hedwig glasses so far known all have roughly the same form: they are squat, thick-walled and straight-sided with a flange around the base. They are around 14 cm high and have a diameter of nearly 14 cm. All but one are richly decorated with wheel-cut relief with hatched details.
The glasses are mostly of a smoky metal colour with a couple of greenish or yellowish glass. The decorations are in two styles: four have abstract decorations derived from Samarra Style C; another eight have zoomorphic decorations of lions, griffins and eagles and palm trees.[1]
Context
They were probably made in emulation of the
Design
The appearance of the Hedwig beakers resembles
Distribution
The Hedwig glasses were clearly high status objects. According to Ettinghausen and Grabar, writing in 1987, so far no examples of this type of glass have been found in the Near East: "all the preserved pieces come from the treasuries of Western churches and noble houses".[1] Small shards of broken Hedwig glasses have been found in excavations. In common with many Islamic objects imported into medieval Europe, they were credited with more antiquity than was in fact the case. The Amsterdam goblet carries the inscription: "Alsz diesz glas war alt tausent jahr Es Pfalzgraf Ludwig Philipsen verehret war: 1643" ("When this glass was a thousand years old, it was given to Ludwig Philipsen, Count Palatine: 1643")
As of 2009, 14 complete Hedwig glasses and ten additional fragments are known.[2]
Complete
- British Museum, London, UK. Displayed in Room 34. BM Ref ME OA 1959.4-14.1, acquired in 1959, donated by P T Brooke Sewell.[3][13]
- Corning, New York, USA.[15]
- Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, Germany.[16]
- Veste Coburg (Art Collections (Kunstsammlungen)), Coburg, Germany.[1]
- Minden Cathedral, Germany.[1]
- Gotha, Germany.[17]
- Halberstadt Cathedral, Germany.[17]
- Wrocław (formerly Breslau) Museum, Poland.[19]
- The Abbey of the Namur, Belgium (two examples here).[17]
Fragments
- Fragment from Bommersheim, Germany.[2][20]
- Fragment from Göttingen, Germany (excavated at Ritterplan, the site of the destroyed castle in the centre of the city).[2]
- Fragment from Navahrudak, Belarus.[21]
- Three fragments from Hilpoltstein, Germany.[2][22]
- Two fragments from Weinsberg, Germany.[6]
- Fragment in the Budapest History Museum, Hungary, excavated from the former royal castle there. Inv. No 52.276.[2]
- Fragment excavated from Brno (formerly Bruenn), Czech Republic.[2][23]
- Fragment from South-west Russia.[19]
- Almost complete glass from Nysa (formerly Neissen), Muzeum w Nysie, Poland.[24][25]
- Fragments from Krymsk, Russian Federation at Azov Museum-Reserve.[26]
The British Museum's example is a "Highlight" object and was selected as the 57th object in the series A History of the World in 100 Objects selected by British Museum director Neil MacGregor and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.[5]
Saint Hedwig
Hedwig glass derives its name from the Silesian Saint Hedwig (ca. 1178-1243, canonized 1267), Duchess of Andechs-Meran and wife the Duke of Wroclaw.[27] According to the legend of Saint Hedwig, recorded in a manuscript from the court of Duke Ludwig I in 1353, she used the beakers for the miraculous transformation of water into wine.[12] The direct association of the beakers with the miracles of Saint Hedwig lead the glass series to be highly sought after, with almost all of them being immediately absorbed into monastic and cathedral treasuries.[28] The relation of the beakers to the Patron Saint of Silesia led to a quasi-relic status of the series, with six out of ten glasses transformed into chalices, ostensories or reliquaries indicative of their high-status within medieval treasuries. This elevated status led many to believe in their protective and healing abilities; the women of the House of Wettin regarded the beakers as an insurance of safe childbirth.[10] Additionally, a Hedwig beaker seems to have come into the possession of Martin Luther, or his hosts; it can be seen in a drawing by the Cranach workshop of 1507, and is now in the Veste Coburg.[10]
Theories of their place of origin
Much scholarship in the last century discussed the Hedwig glasses, especially their elusive origins and
The theory that it was made in the Middle East was continued by academics like Robert Schmidt and Carl Johan Lamm, however the proposal that the series came out directly of a Middle Eastern glass workshop was later contested because no fragments or
In 2009, an archeological study was performed by the University of Gottingen, which compared samples of Hedwig glass, with soda ash glass from the Levant, and soda ash glass samples from Egypt, Persia, and Syria.[9] The study found that the Hedwig samples were especially low in magnesium oxide, similar to the glass samples from the Levant. Meanwhile, the samples from Egypt, Persia, and Syria contained distinctly higher MgO concentrations, indicating that the origins of the Hedwig glass are likely the Levant.[9] This study into the chemical composition of the glasses, has further assisted in discrediting the theories that attribute their origin to be Central Europe.
Notes
- ^ a b c d e Ettinghausen and Grabar 196-7
- ^ a b c d e f g h Wedepohl and Kronz
- ^ a b "Hedwig glass beaker " The British Museum". Britishmuseum.org. 1959-04-14. Retrieved 2010-06-06.
- ^ "Search object details". British Museum. 2010-05-14. Retrieved 2010-06-06.
- ^ a b "A History of the World – Object: Hedwig glass beaker". BBC. Retrieved 2010-06-06.
- ^ a b c "Hedwig Beakers". Rosemarie-lierke.de. Retrieved 27 November 2014.
- ^ Image of a chalice (? or reliquary) in Lierke. The notches can be seen in the image of the Corning Museum example.
- ^ "Corning Museum of Glass - Kids and Teens Free! (19 and under)". Archived from the original on July 8, 2009. Retrieved June 7, 2010.
- ^ ISSN 0001-5210.
- ^ )
- ^ )
- ^ a b "Corning Museum of Glass". www.cmog.org. Retrieved 2019-12-09.
- ^ Pinder-Wilson, pp. 43-45
- ^ "Museum page with good image". Archived from the original on 2019-07-06. Retrieved 2020-02-18.
- ^ Corning Museum of Glass page Archived 2011-07-20 at the Wayback Machine; "Medieval Glass for Popes, Princes, and Peasants at Corning Museum of Glass". artmuseumjournal.com. 2010-05-15. Retrieved 2010-06-06.
- ^ "Google Books search for the Nuremberg Hedwig glass". Retrieved 27 November 2014.
- ^ a b c Erdmann 244
- ^ "Cathedral Museum in Krakow". krakow-info.com. Retrieved 2010-06-06.
- ^ JSTOR 875706.
- ^ Wedepohl
- ^ "Какие тайны хранят развалины Новогрудского замка". КП. 23 November 2011. Retrieved 27 November 2014.
- ^ von Stein
- ^ Wedepohl, Merta, Pesek and Sedlácková
- ^ Muzeum w Nysie
- ^ "Musei nella regione di Nysa". Cammini d'Europa. Cammini d'Europa. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
- ^ "Обнаружена уникальная коронационная чаша".
- ^ Alvis, Robert E. "The Modern Lives of a Medieval Saint: The Cult of St. Hedwig in Twentieth-Century Germany". German Studies Review.
- OCLC 52079295.
- ^ a b Lierke, Rosemarie (2005). Die Hedwigsbecher: Das Normannisch-Sizilische Erbe der Staufischen Kaiser.
References
- Erdmann, Kurt, 1949, "An Unknown Hedwig Glass" The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 91, No. 558 (Sep., 1949), pp. 244+247-249
- Ettinghausen, R. and Grabar, Oleg, 1987, The Art and Architecture of Islam 650-1250, Pelican History of Art pages 196-7
- Pinder-Wilson, R. H., 1960, "A Hedwig Glass for the Museum" The British Museum Quarterly Vol. 22, No. 1/2 (1960), pp. 43–45
- von Stein, Heinrich. Des Reiches Statthalter zu Nurnberg Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine (in German)
- Wedepohl, Hans. Ein Hedwigsbecher-Fragment aus der Burg Bommersheim, Oberursel, Hochtaunuskreis (Hessen) = A Hedwig's-beaker Fragment from Burg Bommersheim near Oberursel in the Upper Taunus District (in German)
- Wedepohl, K. H. and Kronz, A., 2009, "The Chemical Composition of a Fragment from the Hedwig Beaker Excavated at the Royal Palace at Buda (Budapest)" Acta Archeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hung 60: 441-443[permanent dead link]
- Wedepohl, K. H., Merta, D., Pesek, M., and Sedlácková, H., 2007, 'A Hedwig Beaker Fragment from Brno (Czech Republic)' Journal of Glass Studies 49, 266-8
Further reading
- Allen, E. N., The Hedwig Glasses, A Survey, 1987, Hyattsville, Maryland.
- Brend, B., 1991, Islamic Art London, The British Museum Press
- Carboni, Stefano; Whitehouse, David (2001). Glass of the sultans. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 0870999869.
- Hayward Gallery, 1976, The Arts of Islam London/Hayward Gallery, Arts Council of Great Britain page 141
- Husband, Timothy B., 2009, "The Asseburg-Hedwig Glass Re-emerges" The Four Modes of Seeing: Approaches to Medieval Imagery in Honor of Madeline Harrison Caviness, edited by Evelyn Staudinger Lane, Elizabeth Carson Pastan, and Ellen M. Shortell, pp. 44–62. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2009.
- Lierke, Rosemarie. Die Hedwigsbecher – das normannisch- sizilische Erbe der staufischen Kaiser, 2005, F. Rutzen Verlag, Mainz/Ruhpolding, ISBN 3-938646-04-7
- Shalem, Avinoam, 1998, Islam Christianized: Islamic portable objects in the medieval church treasuries of the Latin West Volume 7 of Ars faciendi
- Tait, H. (ed.), 1991, Five Thousand Years of Glass London: The British Museum Press
External links
- British Museum page on a Hedwig glass in its collection
- The British Museum's Hedwig glass in its collections database
- BBC Radio 4's A History of the World in 100 Objects page on a Hedwig glass in its collection
- Transcript of the BBC Radio 4's A History of the World in 100 Objects programme on the British Museum's Hedwig glass
- Hedwig glass at the Rijksmuseum Archived 2012-10-10 at the Wayback Machine
- Hedwig glass at the Corning Museum of Glass