Title

Chalice of Esteban Davila y Toledo

Anónimo portugués

Generic classification

Object

Date

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Dimensions

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Provenance

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Inventory Number in Current Collection

Object history

The presence of the hallmark of Ávila on the chalice leaves no doubt as to its place of production. Likewise, the coat of arms on the foot suggests that it was originally intended for the family chapel of the House of Las Navas y Villafranca, within the former convent of San Francisco de Ávila. According to López Fernández and Duralde Rodríguez (2014, pp. 37-39), it was located next to the main chapel, possibly in the transept of the convent church, although nothing remains of it today.

Unlike the complex genealogical justifications made by Charles Oman (1968, p. 10), curator of the metalwork section of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, we believe that the chalice was a donation from Esteban Dávila y Toledo, 6th Lord of Las Navas and Villafranca de la Sierra and 2nd Count of El Risco. He was the son of Pedro Dávila y Bracamonte and his second wife, Elvira Álvarez de Toledo. The presence of the coats of arms of these three noble houses is thus directly justified, and there is also a chronological coincidence between the benefactor and the dating of the chalice.

Little is known about the donor apart from the fact that he was a councillor in Ávila, belonged to the noblemen's guild of San Juan, and was Ávila's representative in the Cortes of Toledo in 1502 and its continuation in the Cortes of Madrid the following year. He must have died a few years later (Moreno Núñez, n.d.) and was succeeded at the head of the house by his son Pedro Dávila y Zúñiga, 1st Marquis of Las Navas, a highly influential figure in the courts of Charles I and Philip II, as well as an art patron and collector (Parada y Palacios, 2020).

The date of its creation could be placed in the early years of the 16th century, after the fire that ravaged the convent of San Francisco in 1502, which destroyed much of the building and severely damaged its contents. It would be logical to think that the sacred vessel served to provide the family chapel with new liturgical furnishings.

According to information provided by Oman, the chalice was acquired in Ávila for Sir John Charles Robinson's collection before 1881, at which time it was already among the pieces exhibited at the Special Loan Exhibition of Spanish and Portuguese Ornamental Art (pp. 134-135), held at the South Kensington Museum, later renamed in honour of Queen Victoria and her husband. It has remained there to this day, without being mentioned in more recent studies of silverware.

The acquisition by the English collectionist may have been associated with the disentailment processes of the 19th century and the confiscation and sale of property belonging to the monastic institutions suppressed in Ávila. The convent of San Francisco, founded in the 13th century, was favoured by the great noble houses of Ávila from its origins, such as the above-mentioned Dávila and Bracamonte, as well as Rengifo, Henao, Águila and Valderrábano, who had private chapels within its walls and endowed the place. After losing its monastic activity during the 19th century, the building began a gradual decline and ruin until its restoration at the beginning of the 21st century to convert it into a municipal auditorium.

Another chalice, which must also have had its origin in the convent of San Francisco, is preserved in the same London museum and is included in the Nostra et Mundi catalogue (https://inventario.nostraetmundi.com/es/obra/284).

Description

The chalice of Esteban Dávila y Toledo is made of silver-gilt and is characterised by its complex decorative work, a structure that is unusual in Castilian silverware and a unique heraldic arrangement, to which is added its particular iconographic discourse.

It stands on a foot with a flange, where the silvermark of the city of Ávila, a crenellated tower, appears. It is located next to a sectioned area, which may have contained the maker's mark and the author mark. The outline of the base is composed of small mouldings, between which there is a fine chiselled plant decoration. The surface is divided into sections of two sizes, the small ones with a semicircular outline and the larger ones topped with double ogees. While the first incorporate plant motifs, the second alternate coats of arms and the representations of Saint John the Baptist, Saint James the Apostle and the Instruments of the Passion. The segments are separated by a fluted groove with chiselled edges, which runs around the entire perimeter of the base.

The image of John the Baptist appears standing, dressed in animal skins, holding the book and the lamb in one hand, while pointing at them with the other. The treatment of the clothing stands out, worked in great detail, as do the hair, beard and the vegetation surrounding him. Saint James is depicted under the iconography of “Santiago Matamoros”, wearing armour, on horseback, sword in hand and carrying a flag. Beneath the horse are the bodies and heads of Muslims. The Arma Christi are arranged around the grained wooden cross, with a perfume bottle above, the dice, mace, scourges and ladder on the left, and Longinus' spear, the cane with the sponge, the pincers, the nails and the column of the flagellation on the right.

As for the coats of arms, all three feature the same profile cut out on the left side, a system that is unusual in Castilian heraldry, topped with a crest and surrounded by mantling in the form of plant motifs. The Bracamonte coat of arms, with its chevron and mace, has a swan crest and dangling balls around it. The Dávila coat of arms, with the thirteen roundels characteristic of the family branch of Esteban Domingo, uses an armed arm as a crest, holding up the flag where the roundels are repeated. It also has balls hanging from the mantling. The Álvarez de Toledo coat of arms not only includes the fifteen azure and silver squares representing the lineage, but also incorporates the nine pennants as distinctive features of the family branch of the Dukes of Alba.

The stem rises above a fluted and multi-lobed disc. It has a hexagonal cross-section and a symmetrical shape. At the top and bottom, it has Gothic tracery windows separated by buttresses. In the centre, the knot maintains the six-sided division, forming a sort of quasi-spherical polyhedron, decorated with foliage across the entire surface. It is divided by an impost with openwork tracery and double cresting of fleurs-de-lis. The cup has a variegated decoration in the lower third, a complicated bulbous vegetal latticework reminiscent of the profile of scallop shells. The upper two thirds are smooth.

The Cathedral of Cádiz houses the so-called ‘Gothic Chalice’, which bears striking similarities to the Ávila piece in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. In addition to sharing the same structure, it also features rich iconography, including the figure of Saint John the Baptist and the Instruments of the Passion in a very similar arrangement. Charles Oman mentions other similar works in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon, suggesting that a Portuguese craftsman may have been working in Castile. To this end, in the first half of the 16th century, the silversmith Andrés Hernández, known as ‘el Portugués’ (the Portuguese), worked in Ávila. His work is well known and differs from that of this chalice, although the example serves to illustrate the exchange of influences and artists with the neighbouring kingdom.

The fact is that a formal reading of the Ávila chalice reveals a Gothic lexicon of influences far removed from the main centres of silver production in Castile around 1500. The type of knot, the ornamental profusion of the foot, the quality of the embossing and the work with plant motifs make this piece an exception in Ávila's goldsmithing. In addition to its artistic value, it is linked to one of the oldest noble families in Ávila through one of its lesser-known members, whom we can now associate with a unique work of art.

Except for the loss of some small parts of the foot flange, the chalice is in very good state of preservation.

Locations

• ca. 1502 - Mid XIX^th c.

  convent

  Convent of St. Francis, Ávila, Ávila (Spain)

• Mid XIX^th c. - pre. 1881

  dealer/antiquarian

  Sir John Charles Robinson, London (United Kingdom) *

• pre. 1881 - present

  museum

  Victoria & Albert Museum, London (United Kingdom)