UNKNOWN GOLDSMITH, German
(active around 1500 in Nuremberg)

Ewer with Wild Man Finial

c. 1500
Silver, silver gilt, and enamel, height 64 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The wild man was a mythical woodland creature, once regarded as brutish, but by this time (c. 1500) perceived as the embodiment of Germanic strength and endurance. On this ewer, which possibly belonged to Hartmann von Stockheim, German master of the Order of Teutonic Knights, holding the traditional attributes of a club and an armorial shield, the wild man announced and protected the ewer's ownership.