A rare Siegburg stoneware pewter-mounted tankard (Schnelle), circa 1560-70

Moulded with three rectangular panels depicting figures of Emperors in full armour, titled 'IULIUS CESAR', 'CARLUS' and 'GROS ALEXANDER', respectively (Julius Caesar, Charlemagne and Alexander the Great), each holding an armorial shield, mounted with a domed contemporaneous pewter cover, 29.5cm high (small chips to rim)

Provenance:
With Edwin van Drecht;
Private European Collection

From a series known as the 'Nine Worthies'. The Nine Worthies are nine historical, scriptural, and legendary personages who personify the ideals of chivalry established in the Middle Ages, whose lives were deemed a valuable study for aspirants to chivalric status. All were commonly referred to as 'Princes', regardless of their historical titles. In French they are called Les Neuf Preux or "Nine Valiants", giving a more specific idea of the moral virtues they exemplified: those of soldierly courage and generalship. In German they were called the neun Gute Helden.

The Nine Worthies include three pagans (Hector, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar), three Jews (Joshua, David and Judas Maccabeus) and three Christians (King Arthur, Charlemagne and Godfrey of Bouillon). They were first described in the early fourteenth century, by Jacques de Longuyon in his Voeux du Paon (1312). Their selection, as Johan Huizinga pointed out, betrays a close connection with the romance genre of chivalry. Neatly divided into a triad of triads, these men were considered to be paragons of chivalry within their particular traditions, whether Pagan, Jewish, or Christian. Longuyon's choices soon became a common theme in the literature and art of the Middle Ages and earned a permanent place in the popular consciousness.

It is perhaps no coincidence that the Neun Gute Helden also feature in the famous interiors of the Town Hall of the city of Cologne which was built in 1340, likely during a lull in the works on the contemporaneous Cologne Cathedral, and saved from the destructions of WWII by removal to the Dombauhütte or Cathedral construction hut, a building housing craftsmen continuously renovating the Cathedral sculpture and architecture since the middle of the 13th century.