Covered Welcome Beaker (Willkommglas)

Newly arrived guests toasted and drank from this Wilkommglas or welcome glass. The beaker's sides and foot also served as a kind of guest book where distinguished visitors inscribed their names, personal devices, and dates of their visit. Such important individuals included Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol and his nephew Maximilian I, members of important families from the Austrian Tyrol, and a formidable soldier known as the "terrorizer of the Turks." As most of the inscriptions date from 1559 to 1629, this is one of the earliest welcome glasses to survive. The enameled coat of arms on both sides of the beaker must date before 1555, when it was redesigned to incorporate the inherited arms of another family. As they were used for toasts in drunken celebrations that could last for nearly three weeks, many such glasses ended up broken and ultimately discarded.