A very rare façon de Venise carafe or...

A very rare façon de Venise carafe or ewer for the Austrian market c.1560-90, Italian, the body of a rich blue glass, with cold-painted gilt and wash enamel decoration including double-headed eagles, mythical scaly creatures and shaped panels, one containing a lion mask, the slender knopped neck rising to a narrow spout with everted rim, raised on a conical foot below a gilt knop, 20.3cm. Provenance: Alfred de Rothschild (1842-1918) at Halton House, Lionel de Rothschild (1882-1942), Edmund de Rothschild (1916-2009) at Exbury House, Hampshire. Cf. Klesse & Meyr, European Glass from 1500-1800, The Ernesto Wolf Collection, no.27 for a similar pair with more elaborate decoration from the Max Goldschmidt Collection. That pair feature a painted wax mask head at the base of each handle within a painted cartouche identical to that which encircles the handle of the carafe in this lot.