Wine decanter

The goldsmith designed this innovative, even forward-looking, vessel to serve mulled wine, a popular spiced drink. The beverage was prepared by placing spices on the slightly funnel-shaped filter of the decanter and then pouring hot wine over them. The inscriptions on the medallions applied to either side of the flattened round body may refer to two weddings. One inscription, G. BETHLEN GERGELY/G. KENDEFFI RACHEL/1779, may mark the union of the decanter’s recipients; the other inscription, BÁNFI SUSANNA/KENDEFI GÁBOR/A O 1742, perhaps records the marriage of the bride’s parents. There is a discrepancy between the goldsmith’s presumed death in 1772 and the applied date of 1779. It is possible that the guild allowed the master’s widow to continue his workshop after his death as was often the case.

Literature
Catalogue of Fine European Silver. Sale cat., Sotheby’s, Geneva, November 10, 1981, p. 68, no. 172.
Judit H. Kolba. Hungarian Silver: The Nicolas M. Salgo Collection. London, 1996, p. 120, no. 97.

Exhibited
Régi ezüstkiállításának leíró lajstroma. Exh. cat. edited by Károly Csányi. Országos Magyar Iparművészeti Múzeum. Budapest, 1927, pp. 46–47, no. 375.
Erdély régi művészeti emlékeinek kiállítása az Iparművészeti múzeumban / Ausstellung alten Kunstgewerbes aus Siebenbürgen. Exh. cat. Országos Magyar Iparművészeti Múzeum. Budapest, 1931, p. 24, no. 88.

References
Elemér Kőszeghy. Magyarországi ötvösjegyek a középkortól 1867-ig / Merkzeichen der Goldschmiede Ungarns vom Mittelalter bis 1867. Budapest, 1936, nos. 982 [town mark], 1005 [maker’s mark].
A similar decanter is owned by the Prince of Liechtenstein (see Johann Kräftner, ed., Der Fürst als Sammler: Neuerwerbungen unter Hans-Adam II. von und zu Liechtenstein. Vienna, 2010, pp. 144–145, no. 57).

[Wolfram Koeppe 2015]