posted 11-28-2005 07:05 PM            

Hello,

I recently purchased what appears to be a very old and heavy silver crucifix with a mark that I cannot find...It is of a hooded figure (head facing to it's right) in a long gown with long sleeves, within a shield shape and it appears to be holding something in it's right hand. There are no numbers. The Christ figure is attached with hand-made screws and bolts. The piece is completely hand-made and has finials at all 4 ends resembling a 17th or 18th c. design.

Does anyone have any ideas about the mark?

Appreciate any information.

Thanks !!!

posted 11-28-2005 08:12 PM            

Without a photo it difficult to be sure, but the mark sounds like the city mark for Munich in use from the 17th century to 1888 when the new marks for a unified Germany were introduced. Since date numbers were added from the middle of the 18th century, your piece may be earlier. From what I have seen on server visits to Germany and Austria, it does sound Baroque. Is there a halo around the head of the figure? What is the shape of the shield in which the figure is set?

Better yet, can you post a photo?

posted 11-28-2005 08:44 PM            

Thanks for your response.

There is no halo on the figure. Just the hood and long butterfly like sleeves. The shield it is in, is flat across the top and the two sides curve in to connect at the bottom...

I am ignorant as to how to post photos

Thanks,
Peter.

posted 11-29-2005 12:32 PM            

To understand its use, it is necessary to know a little bit about the hierarchy of the Munich guild. The guild had four assayers working simultaneously: a primary and secondary assayer each for gold and silver. These assayers were elected annually from the guild’s ranks and were, therefore, practicing smiths themselves. Since it would hardly do for an assayer to test his own wares, whenever the primary assayer’s work was submitted to the guild, it was tested by the secondary assayer and stamped with the Führerpunze to indicate that the primary assayer, who was also the maker (and whose mark did contain the year numbers), was not responsible for its guaranty. Pictured here is the Munich Führerpunze for 1836-1848, which pretty well matches your description:

(Coincidentally, this was the last Führerpunze; its use seems to have been abandoned around 1848.)

The year of manufacture then, can generally be determined by the maker’s mark on these items, since it would be one of the years that the maker served as primary assayer. You do not mention a maker’s mark, however, which is not at all uncommon, I have found, for ecclesiastical wares. Conversely, if the Führerpunze (if it is indeed that; tmockait’s observation about mid-18th century & earlier Munich marks is correct) can be positively identified, then the maker can be narrowed down to the assayers who were working in that time frame.

Is there a maker’s mark? As mentioned, a photo would be enormously helpful, both of the marks and the crucifix. (Is the cross itself silver or just the corpus? Are they both marked?) Dating devotional items can be notoriously tricky regarding both style & construction. They were understandably less subject to the aesthetic faddishness that ruled domestic wares, giving far broader time frames for the style, and were sometimes made to be displayed with older, existing items and/or to be a repair or addition to such items, resulting in misleading anachronistic “hand-made” attachments such as you describe.

posted 11-29-2005 02:46 PM            

Many thanks for all the good advice...

I have tried repeatedly to download photos (I am a bit computer challenged) to no avail...

The Fuhrerpunze posted is correct with the exception of something rather large in the figures right hand and the figure is somewhat cruder than the posted punze.

The cross measures roughly 9 1/2" X 7 1/2" and weighs quite a bit. The cross itself is composed of one vertical bar of silver with two side pieces soldered to it on the back...the process is reversed on the front. There are no additional marks on either the Corpus or behind it...The corpus is held with screws and nuts that are hand made...

Much of the ecclesiastic silver from the 17th-19th centuries I have in my collection is unmarked.

The piece has remains of gilding viewable under a jewelers loupe (in crevasses and behind the corpus). It appears that at some point it was polished off. The Christ figure is hand chased and that has a bit of wear as well. Someone long ago scratched INRI at the apex of the cross and that has been all but polished out. The top part of the cross is very short, as was common in the late 17th c and the Corpus is in the style of the 17th c ...It is something of a mystery.

Many, many thanks !!!
Peter.

posted 11-29-2005 06:09 PM            

Tom