Art Deco Gilded Sterling Silver Chalice

Product Details

Art Deco Gilded sterling silver chalice, impressed only with the mark Sterling.  North American, circa 1930-40.  The chalice is satin finished gold washed and very bright.  It shows very little wear to the gilding. 

The base is engraved with the traditional symbols of a Christogram (Chi-Rho or a super-imposed PX in Greek), The Eye of Providence (an eye in a triangle, a reference to the omnipresence of  God and to the Trinity) and “Fortitudo” with a dove in between forti and tudo (Fortitude is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, hence the dove.  Priests often receive a chalice upon their ordination.  The combination of the symbols suggests a visual prayer for fortitude in the new priest’s vocation).

Engraved on the bottom:  Rev. Henry E. Zelinske O. Praem. *

O. Praem is the abbreviation for the Order of the Canons Regular of Premontre **.

8 1/8” (20.6cm) high, 5 3/4” (14.6cm) diameter at the base.

686.6 grams

$4800.

*Rev. Henry Zelinske (1911-1960) was born Edward Zelinske in Fox Crossing, Wisconsin. He joined the Norbertines in 1930 and was ordained in 1935.  He was a teacher at Roman Catholic high schools in Philadelphia and Green Bay, Wisconsin.

** The Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré, also known as the Premonstratensians, the Norbertines and, in Britain and Ireland, as the White Canons, is a religious order of canons regular of the Catholic Church founded in Prémontré near Laon in 1120 by Norbert of Xanten, who later became Archbishop of Magdeburg. 

as per Wikipedia