Cylindrical on raised foot chased with winged cherub masks and foliate scrolls, the plain body chased below the rim with a scene after an engraving by Virgil Solis of peasants in a landscape, with a leaping bull depicting the Zodiac sign for Taurus with inscription 'APRILIS' beneath, a man fishing seated on a stool dated 1582, marked underneath
3¹⁄₂ in. (9 cm.) high
6 oz. 7 dwt. (199 gr.)

Almost certainly Carl Mayer von Rothschild Collection, Frankfurt am Main (1885).
The Sydney J. Lamon Collection, Christie's, London, 28 November 1973, lot 64 (£6,500 to Vater).

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Lot Essay

This beaker was part of a series of twelve beakers called Monatsbecher or month beakers from which March, July, November and December are known to survive. March and November are in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, illustraed in H. Müller, European silver, London, 1986, p. 154, no, 42, previously sold at Sotheby's, London, 20 April 1972, lot 141. The series is believed to have almost certainly been part of Carl Mayer von Rothschild's collection, Frankfurt am Main (1885).

The beakers celebrate different times of the year with engraved scenes mostly of rural life, appropriate for the season. Gregor Bair is believed to have been a journeyman in Nuremberg who trained himself in the drawing of designs and the making of models.
Certainly Bair appears to have based the scene on an engraving for the month of April by the engraver and designer Virgil Solis (1514-1562). This scene first appeared as a woodcut by Hans Sebald Beham (1500-1550) and was subsequently copied by other engravers including a version in reverse by Hans Brosamer (1500-54) and the version seen on this beaker adapted by Virgil Solis (1514-1578) in the 1540s.

Solis was a German printmaker and publisher and the scion of a large family of Nuremberg artists. He created some two thousand prints on all manner of subjects but many, as in this instance, were copied from earlier sources, such as the work of the Antwerp engraver Cornelis Floris and the Nuremberg goldsmith Wenzel Jamnizter. His work was very popular with goldsmiths and Solis, together with Matthias Zundt (1498-1586) and Solis' pupil Jost Amman, was responsible with for the dissemination of Mannerist ornament throughout Europe through the publication in Nuremberg of their series of pattern-books.