Object Description
Series: THE FOUR WORLD-MONARCHS
387 ALEXANDER THE GREAT
The emperor sits in armor upon arms and trophies at a sea. At left, a four-headed dragon. The monarch holds the staff of command in his right hand, in his left a fluttering flag with the insignia of a ram. In the background, buildings on the shore; at left above, a windgod in the clouds. Inscription below: ALEXANDER MAGNVS.
Lead, 71 x 100 mm. Molded border, rounded tab at top with hole drilled through. Cast from the rim of a plate(?), with the border added, since the field is trapezoidal, the inscription cut, and the lower corners filled with ornamentation.
The representations of this series are patterned after the so-called Mars-Schuessel of Francois Briot, produced around 1600 (Hans Demiani, Francois Briot, Caspar Enderlein, und das Edelzinn, Leipzig 1897, p. 50ff., pl. 24; Ulrich Haedeke, Zinn, Brunswick 1963, p. 166ff.). The series occurs on a butcher's guild tankard from Joachimsthal, in the Museum fuer Kunsthandwerk in Dresden, a work in pewter of the Joachimsthal metalsmith Christopher Duerr in 1565 (Haedeke, Ibid., p. 239, fig. 201). The plaquettes were also aftercast by German metalsmiths for pewter sandvessels (Demiani, op. cit., p. 55, pl. 13, 3).
Other specimens: (lead) Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum; Paris, Private Collection; Stuttgart, Wuerttembergisches Landesmuseum; Posen, National Museum.
Bibl.: Neuerwerbungen des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, Nuremberg, 1970-71, p. 179 ff.; Weber, no. 748, 3. Auction catalogs: Thewalt Coll., Lempertz, Cologne, 4-14 November 1903, no. 1216; Lobbecke, no. 923, pl. 46; Cat. 104, Dupriez, Brussels, 31 January 1912, no. 456.