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The Great Chalice Adorned with Figures
Wenceslaus Hollar (Bohemian, 1607–1677)
1640
- Medium
- etching
- Classification
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 46.7 x 24.5 cm (18 3/8 x 9 5/8 in.)
- Culture
- Bohemia
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Prints
- Credit line
- Gift of Leonard C. Hanna Jr.
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Chalices traditionally hold the priest’s consecrated wine during Catholic Mass. Wenceslaus Hollar made this etching of an over-life-size chalice from a drawing in the collection of his patron, the English 14th Earl of Arundel. The elaborate decoration consists of scenes from the suffering and death of Christ, standing saints and apostles on the stem, and a pointed foot inspired by Moorish designs (a style prominent in Spain and North Africa featuring distinctive pointed arches). The barely discernable crescent shape just above the rim suggests a hovering Eucharistic wafer, representing the body of Christ.
