A Venetian enamelled and gilt glass pilgrim flask, almost certainly early 16th century

of flattened form with a bulbous lower section each side applied with a gilt spiralled glass medallion with green and blue enamel dots, enlivened with small gilt and blue rosettes, the side affixed with two gilt-glass loops flanking a gilt-lozenge reserving green, blue and red enamel dots, the neck with a band of small blue rosettes within two gilt cross-hatched bands flanked by white dots, on a spreading foot with a further gilt cross-hatched band, the folded rim painted in blue and white,

Sir Antony Blunt (ed.), The James A. De Rothschild collection at Waddesdon Manor, Glass and Enamels, Fribourg, 1977, pp. 91-93, no. 17;
R. J. Baarsen (ed.), Glass in the Rijkmuseum, Zwolle, 1993, Vol. I, p. 19, no. 3 for another example of the form;
Catherine Hess and Timothy Husband, European Glass in The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 1997, pp. 87-89, no. 20.

There is a network of internal cracks at one side of the bottle, probably extending from an external chip, located just above the lower applied glass loop. At this network of internal cracks, one extends vertically up the of the upper loop and terminates just above the lower gilded band at the neck. There is a short internal crack to a flattened side, visible in the catalogue illustration, and a further one to the side of the neck. To the flattened side illustrated in the catalogue there are three air bubbles on the surface of the glass. There is rubbing to the gilding throughout
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An important pair of pilgrim flasks for dating this group of glass is in the collection of Museo Civico, Bologna. Bearing the coat of arms of the Bentivoglio family on one flask, and that of the Sforza family on the other, they may have been produced to celebrate the marriage of Alessandro Bentivoglio and Ippolita Sforza in 1492, see Hess and Husband, op. cit., 1997. Another flask bearing the Bentivoglio armorial from the collection of Lord Astor of Hever was sold in these rooms, 18th July 1983, lot 139, and recently was sold as part of the Muhleib collection at Bonhams London, 2nd May 2013, lot 3. These examples all feature a blue banded turned foot rim similar to that seen in the present example. An example of this form and height though with a red and white banded footrim see Sir Antony Blunt, op. cit., 1977. Amongst the latest in this group of glass is one bearing the arms of the Pfintzing family of Nuremburg dating closer to the 1520s.