NARRATOR: This covered vessel, or ewer, is made of a semiprecious stone called jasper. This deep red variety was an especially prized kind of jasper found in the Orr Mountains of the present day Czech Republic. The translucent inclusions are amethyst. Made in the late fourteenth century, this vessel was possibly used at a prince’s table. Or it may have been used in a Church to hold wine during Mass.

We do know that it was produced during the reign of Charles the IV. King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles the IV found jasper particularly appealing. He used it to decorate his royal court at Prague. Curator Barbara Drake Boehm:

BARBARA DRAKE BOEHM: Charles IV was a very sophisticated man. He had been raised at the court of France, and when he went home to Bohemia to assume his throne, he set out make his capital at Prague the equivalent in Eastern Europe of a place like Rome. And so having a land that was very rich in mineral resources, he sent people out to try to find the best minerals…for the decoration of the works of art that he was commissioning. And in fact the Chapel of Saint Wenceslas, who was of course the great patron saint of Bohemia, in the Cathedral at Saint Vitus, still today is literally sheathed with sheets of jasper, almost like wallpaper. And it’s exactly the same material that you see here.