Getty Museum

Covered Welcome Beaker (Willkommglas)

Date

1550–1554

Medium

Free-blown colorless (slightly gray) glass with diamond point engraving, gilding, and enamel decoration

Culture

Austrian

Department

Decorative Arts

Institution

Getty Museum

Newly arrived guests toasted and drank from this *Wilkommglas* or welcome glass. The beaker's sides and foot also served as a kind of guest book where distinguished visitors inscribed their names, personal devices, and dates of their visit. Such important individuals included Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol and his nephew Maximilian I, members of important families from the Austrian Tyrol, and a formidable soldier known as the "terrorizer of the Turks." As most of the inscriptions date from 1559 to 1629, this is one of the earliest welcome glasses to survive. The enameled coat of arms on both sides of the beaker must date before 1555, when it was redesigned to incorporate the inherited arms of another family. As they were used for toasts in drunken celebrations that could last for nearly three weeks, many such glasses ended up broken and ultimately discarded.

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