"Hedwigsglas", aus dem Besitz Martin Luthers

Description

The beaker belongs to a small group of glass vessels decorated in high-relief, which were probably created during the eleventh century in Byzantium or the Near East. During the time of the crusades in c.1200, this valuable glassware also arrived at the German princely courts. Later on, they received the name “Hedwigsbecher”, since in the case of St Jadwiga of Silesia (1174-1243), who supposedly owned three exemplars, in such a glass beaker a miraculous transformation of water into wine apparently took place. The Coburg exemplar was originally owned by St Elizabeth of Hungary (1207-1231). At the time of her death, it was presumably located at the Franciscan monastery at Eisenach, from where it arrived among the possessions of the house of Wettin. The princes appreciated the beaker for its miraculous powers that allegedly ensured a happy outcome during childbirth. They later donated the beaker to the collection of relics in the Wittenberg palace church, where Lucas Cranach saw it and executed a drawing to illustrate a catalogue of the Wittenberg Heiltumsschatz. When the collection of relics was dissolved from 1532 onwards, the Hedwigsbecher was probably donated to Luther by Elector John Frederick I. In 1543, the Joachimsthal pastor, Johannn Mathesius (1504-1565) described after a visit to Luther’s house how the reformer had filled the beaker, the “glaß Sante Elysabeth” (glass beaker of St Elizabeth), and shared it with those present. After Luther’s death the beaker returned to the Ernestine princes in Weimar and from there later arrived in Coburg. In 1910, it was finally identified among the substantial collection of glass beakers at the Veste Coburg.