Decorated Chalice; Paten with the Sudarium

In the field of ornament and the decorative arts, Virgil Solis was without a doubt one of the most prolific printmakers of his time. Mixing inspiration from the Islamic world, Italy, France, and the Netherlands with his own German artistic vocabulary, he created a recognizable personal style that he applied to a vast array of objects. In his oeuvre we find designs for jewelry, sword hilts, cups, ewers, vases, dishes, and title pages as well as figurative motifs and various patterns that could be applied freely to a variety of surfaces. Solis’s designs are predominantly profane in nature, but this chalice appears to be an exception. The roundel enclosing an image of the sudarium (the cloth used by Saint Veronica to wipe Christ’s face and retained an impression of his likeness) is either a design for a separate Paten, a plate used for the host during the Eucharist, or the decoration planned for the inside of the cup.