{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O109079"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O109079/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006BG2900/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006BG2900/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2006BG2900","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2016JC8097","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2016JC8096","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KB7605","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KB7606","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O109079/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O109079","accessionNumber":"221-1866","objectType":"Bowl","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"Mazers were made from the root of the maple tree, the knots of which gave it a characteristic 'burr' figure.  They were used as drinking cups. The name comes from <i>maserle</i>, the French for 'maple tree'. Maple is a hard wood that does not split or shrink easily, and was used for drinking wines that would otherwise have been contaminated by gold, silver or pewter. The lid is decorated with pseudo-Arabic script, probably based on the designs found on imported Turkish textiles. The insides of both the lid and the base of the bowl are inscribed with sayings in French and Latin about drinking - about appreciating your host and taking on the strength of Sampson slaying the lion after a cupfull! The grotesque head at the bottom of the bowl is no doubt a playful addition intended to give the drinker a surprise when he had almost finished.","physicalDescription":"Root of maplewood. The bowl is carved externally with leaves and lowers, and a ring of pseudo-Arabic letters on the outside of the lid. On the inside of the lid is a griffin bordered by a circular inscription that reads VNE.FOYS.FAVLT.COMPTER. A. LOSTE. On the inside at the bottom of the bowl is a grottesque head and underneath the base a group of Samson and the Lion, surrounded by the Latin inscription IRRVIT. AUTEM. SPI[RI]TV[S] DOMINI. IN. SAMPS[ON].","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Unknown","id":"A1848"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"burr maple","id":"x37635"}],"techniques":[{"text":"turning","id":"AAT53158"},{"text":"carving","id":"AAT53149"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Maple burr carved in shallow relief","categories":[{"text":"Containers","id":"THES48972"},{"text":"Woodwork","id":"THES48877"},{"text":"Medieval and renaissance","id":"THES271264"}],"styles":[{"text":"gothic","id":"x30997"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"FWK","id":"THES48597"},"images":["2006BG2900","2016JC8097","2016JC8096","2017KB7605","2017KB7606"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"003","id":"THES302108"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Bowl","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"France","id":"x28849"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":"possibly"}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca. 1400","earliest":"1395-01-01","latest":"1404-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"5.5","unit":"in","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Diameter","value":"8","unit":"in","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"VNE. FOYS. FAVLT.COMPTER. ALOSTE","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"One time you must count on the host.","transliteration":"","type":"","note":""},{"content":"IRRVIT. AVTEM. SPI[RI]TV[S] DOMINI. IN. SAMPS[ON].","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"However, the spirit of the Lord rushed into Sampson.","transliteration":"","type":"","note":""}],"objectHistory":"Purchased for £33 - 12 - 0 from the Lecarpentier Sale, Paris, May 1866 lot 158. (Catalogue des Objets et de curiosité, tableaux anciens composant la Collection de feu M. Le Carpentier, 1866; Bois en sculpture, 158). 'Vase en racine de bois. Les grandes inscriptions sont en ancien arabe, peut-être du temps de la domination des maures en Espagne. L'interieur du couverte represente Samson terrassante la lion avec un inscription en latin sous le vase est un songe avec ces mots:  VNE FOYS FAVLT COMPTER A LOSTE. (Bois sculptés. 148.)\nDescribed at acquisition as 'French(?), 15th or early 16th century? H. 5 1/2 in. diam. 8 in.\r\n\nA memo by J.C.Robinson (June 7th 1866) notes that he selected a number of lots from the Lecarpentier sale as desirable, but purchased only lots 11, 52, 53, 687, 688, 18, 156, 158, 576 as 'the objects in general have realised considerably higher prices than I had anticipated...'\n\nAn unsigned note on FWK file, dated January 1905 has 'The inscription in Arabic appears to be simulated. I cannot read anything in them.'\n\nCircular Mazer bowl with cover in root of maple. The bowl surrounded and the outside with a zone of simulated Arabic inscription carved in relief, and also with numerous spray of flowering plants and natural leaves, underneath the foot; carved in high relief is a dragon or salamander within a ribbon scroll inscribed \"une fois [sic.] compter à l'oste\". The cover is also decorated with a zone of simulated Arabic characters and detached flowers and leaves, and the margin is enriched with a molding formed by two interlaced, knotted sticks. The knob a finial of the ewer bears a monogram and a device of a small dragon, and the inside of the lid is ornamented with a relief of Sampson overcoming a lion, surrounded by a ribbon scroll bearing an inscribed Latin motto - The date of the unique and curious object is apparently towards the end of the 15th or beginning of the 16th century, and the motto - in the French language, appears to indicate it to be of French origin.\r\n\r\nLocation (c. 1930) recorded as Rm 4. C 124. \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Bowl or mazer (maser); France (?); ca. 1400","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Joan Evans: 'A Carved Mazer Cup at Suth Kensington', <i>Burlington Magazine</i>, July 1928, pp. xx - yy\n\n  'In France the mazer was universally used for wine-drinking because certain wines loose their bouquet when drunk from a metal cup, (particularly Wines from Burgundy and  Touraine). They are so called because they are fashioned from a 'mazer':- the hard knot or boll from a tree, especially from maple. \r\n    In England, mazers are usually bourgeois in origin and simply made, but in France they commonly formed part of the equipment of royal and princely establishments. Items for the making of mazers occur in French Royal accounts, as in one dated 135O: 'un hanap de madre fin, a toutle couvercle, duquel l'on sert le Roy a table.' In 1387 the Queen's hanap of mazer, broken in a fall, was patched with silver and riveted with gold. Also, in 1390: 'le couvercle du hanap de madre blanc du Roy NS' was similarly mended.  In 1391 a payment was made 'a Richart de Susay, Madelenier demourant a Paris, pour un  hanap cailler, couvert, achete de lui, pour faire une couppe a boire de nuit vin  nouvel, en la chambre de la Royne, en ceste saison d'yver,VIJ xx XIJ livres.' \r\n  ln 1866 the Victoria and Albert Museum bought this mazer from the collection of M. Le Carpentier and it is the only surviving example Joan Evans knows of a carved  type. Mazer cups were used at least from the 11th to the 17th centuries. The form of our mazer gives an indication of its date. The outline generally resembles that of the Stuley Royal Bowl of about 1385, which is also in the Museum, and its form corresponds with gold and silver 'coupes' of Louis d'Anjou, the carved medallions within the bowl and cover taking the place of enamelled medallions on metal vessels. Its ornament is obviously based upon the decoration of similar pieces of plate; a study of the inventories of Louis I, Duke of Anjou, drawn up in 1379-80 will show nearly all the diverse motives of ornament that appear on the mazer were in use on the plate of that date.  \r\n   The band of Arabic letters round the bowl and cover find many parallels. Forty-three pieces of plate (one, a mazer mounted in silver gilt) decorated with (lettres de Damas', sixty with 'lettres moresques' and ten with 'lettres sarrasines'. The descriptions of some of these pieces recalls the actual arrangement of the decoration  of this mazer 'toute emboutiee sur le pie, par le ventre et sur le couvercle a fuillages de rose et hachie a lettres de Damas, a fueillages divers et a lis', and a covered  hanap 'par dehors a une bende cizellee a lettres de Dammas...et ou couvercle ...sont  les bors...a plusieurs souages et feuillages; et a sur ledit couvercle une bende de lettres de Damas, et dessus a un fretel ceint de feuillages tout autour,et dedans a un lion sur unperron.'  \r\n  Several of the flowers find parallels in the plate described. Roses, lilies, their significance half-heraldic, half naturalistic. Columbine (by analogie between ancolie and melancholie was the flower of sadness) enamelled or chased on several pieces of Louis d'Anjou's plate. A silver violet was set at the bottom of a golden goblet; daisies enamelled in natural colours on a mazer-shaped hanap. The other flowers,  though not represented in Louis of Anjou's inventory, occur in other almost contemporary  lists, and pinks and thistles, currants and peas commonly occur in the flower borders of  illuminated manuscripts some half-century later. The slight knotting of the surface of the lid is probably what is meant in the inventory by 'Brouceronne' applied to the border of an enamel. The subject of Sampson slaying a lion was on nine pieces of the Late of Louis d'Anjou, once appearing on the enamelled 'print' on the bottom of a goblet.  The strange head in the middle is probably a 'teste de Sarrasin'_such as adorn two basins, fitting together to form a cup which likewise has roses at the bottom. The monster carved on the foot finds parallels in the inventory of Louis d'Anjou and with other works of the period, as does the scroll with the motto.  \r\n   The forms of the letters on the inscriptions round two of the medallions are later in date. This lettering was not in use earlier than the mid-15th century. This is the only element in the form or ornament of the mazer which does not find a parallel in the work of about 1380.  \r\n  The style is not entirely French; maybe the mazer comes from the eastern borders of France, from Flanders or Lorraine.'       \r\n"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"(ed. Paul Williamson): <i>Medieval Treasury</i>, (London, 1986)"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"J. Hungerford Pollen, 'Ancient and Modern Furniture and Woodwork', (1874) p. 10 - 11."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"South Kensington Museum, John Charles Robinson, J. C Robinson, and R. Clay, Sons and Taylor. 1881. <i>Catalogue of the Special Loan Exhibition of Spanish and Portuguese Ornamental Art: South Kensington Museum, 1881</i>. London: Chapman & Hall, p.120"}],"production":"This object has long been thought to be French and date from about 1400, although doubts have recently been expressed.","productionType":{"text":"Unique","id":"THES48864"},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[{"text":"Sampson and the Lion","id":"N4506"}],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"COVERED BOWL or MAZER\r\nAnglo-French?: late 14th century.\r\nCarved maple root.\r\nThe inscriptions on the lid and bowl are pseudo-Nashki script and are purely ornamental (lettres de Damas). Under the cover, Sampson slaying the Lion, with the Vulgate inscription, IRRVIT/ AUTEM/ SPI/RI/TUS/DOMINI/IN/SAMPSON (Judges, XIC, in A.V. and the spirit of the Lord poured into Sampson). In the bottom of the bowl, a grotesque head forms the heart of a rose. Under the foot, VNE FOYS FAULT COMPTER A LOST (You must pay some day) surrounds a hippograph. This bowl was presumably a secular object, perhaps a courtly present.\r\n221-1866","date":{"text":"Pre-2006","earliest":"2006-01-01","latest":"2006-12-31"}},{"text":"COVERED BOWL or MAZER\r\nAnglo-French (?);\r\nlate 14th century.\r\nCarved maple-root.\r\n221-1866\r\n\r\nThe inscriptions on the lid and bowl are pseudo-Kufic script and are purely ornamental (lettres de Damas). Under the cover, Sampson slaying the Lion, with the Vulgate inscription, IRRVIT/ AUTEM/ SPI/RI/TUS/DOMINI/IN/SAMPSON (Judges, XIC, in A.V.: And the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him). In the bottom of the bowl, a grotesque head forms the heart of a rose. Under the foot, VNE FOYS FAULT COMPTER A LOST (You must pay some day) surrounds a hippograph. This bowl was presumably a secular object, perhaps a courtly present.","date":{"text":"Pre-2006","earliest":"2006-01-01","latest":"2006-12-31"}}],"partNumbers":["221-1866"],"accessionNumberNum":"221","accessionNumberPrefix":"","accessionYear":1866,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-16","recordCreationDate":"2005-02-07","availableToBook":true}}