WHAT IS A MAZER BOWL ?

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 10 January 1931, Page 5

WHAT IS A MAZER BOWL ?

SIR CHARLES FERGUSSON’S HEIRLOOM BRINGS IN £OOOO LONDON, 21st, November. Wlmt is a mazer howl? One may well ask, since one was sold yesterday at Sotheby's for £OOOO. It belonged to General Sir Charles Fergnsson, and was aii heirloom which till now has been in Kilkerran, his family seat in Ayrshire. Mazer bowls were popular drinking vessels in medieval times. This one ol General Sir Charles Fergnsson s was a bowl of maple wood, and is mounted with a wide rim of silver, the interior engraved 'the Fergnsson arms impaling Durham, with the Edinburgh date of 1570, the height being about 71 inches, and the width about SJ _ inches. It is believed to be the fourth earliest example of Scottish silver bearing a hall-mark.

Mazer bowls like this were usually of wood mounted in silver or even gold, the earliest known being of Edward ll,’s reign. They lost favour after Queen Elizabeth’s time.

Medieval coconut cups, mounted in silver, were, too, much in favour, the best known being those in the possession of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge and - of the citv companies. There were some line examples of these bowls at the exhibition of antiques held some years ago at Olympia. A very fine mazer, with silver gilt ornamentation, Sin deep and !)Ain in diameter, dated 1534, was sold in 1908 foi £2.300. Prices are, therefore, higher now.

The word mazer is believed to come from the German maser, “spot marking,” especially on wood. One sees the same root in measles. The name, of course, arose from the spotted or bird’s rye marking on maple wood, which was used in making mazers. They are shallow bowls without handles, with a broad Hat foot with a knob in the centre of the inside, known technically as the “print.” They were the most prized of the various wooden cups in use from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, and so wore ornamented with a rim of precious metal, the foot and the “print” being also of metal. The depth of the mazers seems'to have decreased in course of time, those of the sixteenth century being much shallower than the earlier examples. On the metal rim is usually an inscription, religious or bacchanalian —since they were drinking cups—and the “print” was also often decorated.