Joachim Scholtz

Polish lidded jug Silver, gilded. The cylindrical body with cast herm handle rests on a foot bulge with engraved landscape reserves. The wall is decorated with finely engraved fruit and birds between three large cornucopia cartouches with scenic depictions of Psalms 30, 41 and 68. The domed hinged lid repeats the decoration of the foot rim. A round reserve with an engraved depiction of the 118th Psalm on the offset crown. Marks: BZ Lissa for the 17th century, MZ Joachim Scholtz (c. 1674 - 1695, cf. Gradowski p. 107), Viennese tax stamp from 1810 - 1824. H 13.3 cm, weight 328 g. Lissa (Leszno) / Poland, Joachim Scholtz, c. 1680. Like the jug mentioned in the cited catalog, this one appears to have originally been used as a communion jug. In both cases, Christ is depicted as an angel in the engraved biblical scenes. And in both the jug in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum and ours, the numbering of the psalms in the depictions appears to refer to the Hebrew counting system. In the scene entitled Psalm 118 on the lid, for example, a kneeling figure hands a heart to a standing angel with the tablets of the law. Psalm 119 of the Hebrew count reads: I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commandments. Provenance Kenneth Davis art dealers, London 1994; Westphalian private collection. Literature Scholtz was one of the most important goldsmiths in Lissa. Two of his wine jugs were found in the parish church of the Bohemian Brethren; Scholtz created another jug for the Lutheran church in Lissa (cf. cat. Deutsche Goldschmiedekunst, Berlin 1992, p. 243); cf. also a communion jug by the master in the collection of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, illustrated ibid. no. 142.