Gothic Mortar

Nuremberg, um 1460

Bronze with dark brown patina
Height 24 cm, diameter at rim 22.5 cm

Provenienz: Berg, Sammlung Genz, Inv. Nr. 3037

At first glance it is obvious that this elegant mortar is one of the finest German Gothic works in bronze. Primarily distinguished by its tall, slender form, it is also remarkable for the outstanding quality revealed in the unusually rich sculptural decoration on its walls. A first arresting feature is the relief frieze below the rim that shows hare-hunting scenes from court life. The vertical ribbing is another sign of the exceptional care lavished on decorating and designing the piece. In the Middle Ages mortars were usually reinforced with simple vertical ribbing like buttressing piers to prevent the lateral deformation to be expected from frequent use. Occasionally the footings of such piers were designed as animal paws so that a mortar decorated with them would look as if it stood on feet. In rare instances the ribbing was designed as sculpture, for instance with standing figures. Here, however, the reinforcing ribs have been transformed into graceful piers that have been deftly combined with a variety of motifs: slender piers articulated by some transverse moulding rise from each lion paw footing, interrupted by bosses in the form of male heads sporting hair and beard styling fashionable at the time and surmounted by typical Gothic thistle leaf finials. The present mortar belongs to small group of mortars decorated with ribbing, animal paws and heads, all of which evidently came from the same workshop and are now in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Hamburg. All these mortars boast similar skeuomorphic decoration consisting of pier-like ribbing with grotesques as bosses, claw and paw pier footings and vegetal pier finials. Ursula Mende has recently convincingly shown that this particularly fine group of works must have been made in Nuremberg, where bronzesmithing is known to have flourished in the mid-fifteenth century. The mortar discussed here stands out within this group because of its quite lavish decoration. A particularly rare feature is the use of thistle leaves as pier finials, a foliate motif that was highly popular in Gothic architecture yet is rarely encountered on works in bronze. The frieze with hunting scenes, which places this mortar in a court context, is unparalleled on works of this kind.