Tankard

About 1550

Medium/TechniqueLead-glazed earthenware, pewter mount

DimensionsOverall: 22.9 x 13 cm (9 x 5 1/8 in.)

Credit LineGift of R. Thornton Wilson in memory of Florence Ellsworth Wilson

Accession number65.29

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsCeramics

Collections

Europe

ProvenanceBy 1906, acquired in Vienna by Count Hans Johann Nepomuk von Wilczek (b. 1837 - d. 1922), Kreuzenstein, Austria [see note 1]. Oscar Bondy (b. 1870 - d. 1944) and Elisabeth Bondy, Vienna; 1938, confiscated from Oscar and Elisabeth Bondy by Nazi forces (probably no. OB 1301) [see note 2]; acquired by the Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum, Linz, Austria; 1947, released by the Landesmuseum to the American Military Government in Austria, and subsequently returned to Elisabeth Bondy, New York [see note 3]; probably sold by Mrs. Bondy to Blumka Gallery, New York [see note 4]; October 3, 1963, sold by Blumka to R. Thornton Wilson (b. 1886 - d. 1977), New York; 1965, gift of R. Thornton Wilson to the MFA. (Accession Date: January 1, 1965)

NOTES:
[1] See Alfred Walcher Ritter von Moltheim, "Bunte Hafnerkeramik der Renaissance in den Österreichischen Ländern" (Vienna, 1906), ill., and ibid., "Hafnergeschirre der Renaissance," Belvedere, 1925, p. 74, ill. opp. p. 73.

[2] With the Anschluss, or annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany in March, 1938, the possessions of Oscar and Elisabeth Bondy were seized and expropriated almost immediately by Nazi forces. This tankard is listed in a Nazi-generated inventory of the collection (July 4, 1938; Vienna, BDA-Archiv, Restitutions-Materialen, K 8/1), probably as no. 1301 ("Fayencekrug, mit plastischen Rhomben, 18. Jh. H=23").

[3] The tankard is included on a list of works of "art objects which are overturned to us from confiscated properties and they are already presented to the respective Section of the American Military and Austrian Government" (May 30, 1947, from the Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum to the American Military Government, Salzburg). National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD, Microfilm Publication M1926. Records of the Reparations and Restitutions Branch of the U.S. Allied Commission for Austria (USACA) Section, 1945-1950.

[4] Mr. Bondy and his wife left Europe and emigrated to the United States, where he passed away in 1944. In the years following World War II, much of his collection was restituted to his widow and subsequently sold on the New York art market, particularly through Blumka Gallery. For further on Oscar Bondy, see Sophie Lillie, Was einmal war: Handbuch der enteigneten Kunstsammlungen Wiens (Vienna, 2003), pp. 216-245.