Beaker (Humpen)
The enamel decoration on this beaker features four figures representing different social classes. Above each figure is a Latin inscription describing their role: priests pray, noblemen and knights fight, peasants labor, and merchants “devour all.” The antimerchant sentiment suggests that this work was made for the nobility, rather than a middle-class burgher market, and was likely used in one of the many drinking rituals central to social life in the 1600s.
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