Imperial Eagle beaker

The Imperial Eagle beakers showed the solidarity between the owner and the Empire and were very popular because of their decorativeness and luminous colors.

Dedications can often be found on the back of the Imperial Eagle beaker, as well as explanations of the representation, the date of creation and the name of the glass creator.

On a beaker from 1669, which today is exhibited in the museum "Grimma", one can read the following passage: The Holy Roman Empire; with all members in the year 1669 Hanß George Sommer [1].

Toasts and blessings from the end of the Thirty Years' War point to the use of the Imperial Eagle beaker at welcoming ceremonies.

Images on wood and copper engravings of well-known contemporary artists often served as models for the decoration of implements and objects of daily use.

Apart from the imperial eagle beaker, drinking vessels made of stoneware, pewter plates and stove tiles also carried these motifs.

Imperial eagle beakers continued to be produced almost unaltered until the middle of the eighteenth century, at which time it seems as if production came to an end.

Early modern drinking culture, in which toasting was a very important custom, resulted in the beaker being connected to the "Imperial Eagle" as an expression of solidarity between the owner and the Empire.

In Richard Braithwaite's (1588-1673) work "Disputatio inauguralis theoretico-practica jus potandi", written in 1616 under the pseudonym "Blasius Multibibus“ and published anonymously in the same year in the German translation with the title "Ius Potandi" (or "Drinking laws"), we can read that, to ward off melancholy: one must invite merry men / and good friends round / to wipe the dust off the Roman Empire and other drinking lords (?

The historian Sven Lüken assumes that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was thinking of an Imperial Eagle beaker when he has the revellers in Auerbach's cellar sing: The dear Holy Roman Empire, how does it stay together?