Frisian silver tankard

Frisian silver tankard

Agge Jelles Reynalda

Franeker, 1677

465 grams; 16,3 cm high; diameter 10.2 cm

The cylindrical body engraved with the coat-of-arms of Jorrit Agges Bruinia with his partly erased initials IAB below initials GL*TH, stands on a spreading base with cable border. The hinged lid is engraved with a scene of ‘Christ and the Samaritan woman’. The S scroll handle has a thumbpiece in the form of antlers. The base is set with a commemorative medal of Maarten Harpertsz. Tromp in high relief, dated 1653, made by W. Muller. On the inside of the body there are two silver buttons that serve as measuring points for the amount of beer. Also engraved with the monogram GH on the reverse of the foot rim. Fully marked on the body near the handle and displaying assay stripes.

The inset of this silver commemorative medal from 1653 by the well-known Amsterdam medal maker Wouter Muller is after a design by Jan Lievens (1607-1674). The scene on the obverse: Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp, bust to the right with Order of Saint Michel under two trumpet-blowing angels with crown, text ribbon ‘MIJN HERT EN HAND WAS VOOR HET LAND’. The reverse, which can be seen on the inside: an admiral’s ship to the left in a firefight in the naval battle against the English during the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652-1654) and the inscription on the edge ‘Waarom doet muller Tromp door kunst van gout en silver leeven: omdat hij d’ijser eew door krijgsdeugd heeft verdreven. obijt den 10 aug: 1653’.

The coat-of-arms engraved on the front of the tankard belonged to Jorrit Ages Bruinia. Jorrit was born in Winsum on 16 October 1642, the son of Age Andries Bruinia and Taetske Hanses Walpert. He married Jetje Dirks in Franeker on 9 February 1662. Jorrit was a commissioner at the Landsdage and receiver of goods in Franeker and died at the age of 35 in Franeker in1678. Jetje Dirks died in 1693. Both were buried in the Martinikerk in Franeker, where the tombstone is still present.

Below the coat-of-arms the initials I.A.B. of Jorrit Ages Bruinia are vaguely visible. His coat-of-arms also appears on a memorial stone that originally came from the Roosendaal Orphanage in Franeker and was transferred to Botniastins in 1854. In 1665 the orphanage moved to the building ‘Roozendaal’ on the corner of the Vijverstraat and Voorstraat in Franeker. The other initials engraved under the coat-of-arms and on the foot rim below have not been traced yet. It cannot be ruled out that these can be attributed to descendants of Jorrit Ages Bruinia.

The silversmith Agge Jelles Reinalda was born in Dronrijp and became a citizen of Franeker on 16 June 1657. He will probably have married Grietje Simons Faber in that year, possibly in March. Both were registered as members of the Church in Franeker on 19 May 1957 with the annotation ‘his wife, from Dronrijp’. Their first child Jelle was baptized on 29 November 1657. It is possible that Grietje Simons Faber was the daughter of the Leeuwarden pharmacist Simon Faber, for Grietje is mentioned as an orphan on 7 November 1637.

In the Proclamation Book Franeker 1668-1682 it is recorded that Agge Jelles Reinalda, silversmith and burgher ‘hopman’, bought a house in the Hoogstraat in 1676. Two of his sons, Simon and Johannes, also became silversmiths in Franeker, around 1680 and 1681. On 29 October 1691, Simon bought out his brother Johannes when they divided the estate of the Hoogstraat. This indicates that Agge Jelle Reinalda must have died before 29 October 1691. Agge Jelles Reinalda was apprenticed to the Leeuwarden silversmith Jan Douwes in 1638 and will have been a master silversmith before 1653, as he had a mortgage debt as a silversmith in that year and is mentioned as such. Several of his works have been described in literature, including this tankard. An octagonal brandy bowl made in 1659 may have been his earliest known object.

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