16th
A01=Shira Brisman
artisan
Author_Shira Brisman
Category=AB
Category=AGA
Category=KCA
Category=KCBM
Category=KCZ
Category=NHD
century
christopher
civic
claim
control
cup
decor
dipliomatic
dominate
drinking
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
etch
europe
european
german
gift
gild
goblet
gold
jamnitzer
land
law
legitimate
legitimize
lidded
metal
mine
mining
nurember
precious
roman
sculpture
sixteenth
statue
statute
subjugate
will
Product details
- ISBN 9780226845203
- Weight: 1701g
- Dimensions: 178 x 254mm
- Publication Date: 23 Apr 2026
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Reveals how art shaped the economy, social order, and legal claims during the rise of capitalism.
In the sixteenth century, German goldsmiths played a unique role in articulating property claims and social values. These artisans shaped precious metals into visible expressions of domination, subordination, and obligation. The objects they crafted played a major role in the practices of exchange and inheritance that were reconfiguring a tumultuous economic landscape. Cities commissioned goldsmiths to transform revenue into goblets that could be given as diplomatic gifts or reconverted into currency in times of war, and courts used serving implements as promises of credit.
With The Goldsmith’s Debt, art historian Shira Brisman offers the first book-length study of the Nuremberg goldsmith Christoph Jamnitzer (1563–1618), who created elaborate gilded silver drinking cups that he crafted into unexpected forms, with designs ranging from racialized heads to mining scenes. Considering how works of art can shape a social order, Brisman explores what Jamnitzer’s etchings and goblets reveal about how goldsmiths shared ideas and how their patrons used commissioned works to legitimize their claims over land and the rights of others. Drawing on a range of textual and material evidence—including commentaries on Roman and customary laws, wills and civic statutes, printed designs, and firsthand study of lidded cups in dozens of major European institutions—this unprecedented study places the goldsmith at the heart of the era’s arguments about how people and lands should be subjugated. Brisman reveals the insidious side of these objects that were often used to advance socially conservative agendas, and she presents radical proposals for addressing inequity in the world of ornament prints.
In the sixteenth century, German goldsmiths played a unique role in articulating property claims and social values. These artisans shaped precious metals into visible expressions of domination, subordination, and obligation. The objects they crafted played a major role in the practices of exchange and inheritance that were reconfiguring a tumultuous economic landscape. Cities commissioned goldsmiths to transform revenue into goblets that could be given as diplomatic gifts or reconverted into currency in times of war, and courts used serving implements as promises of credit.
With The Goldsmith’s Debt, art historian Shira Brisman offers the first book-length study of the Nuremberg goldsmith Christoph Jamnitzer (1563–1618), who created elaborate gilded silver drinking cups that he crafted into unexpected forms, with designs ranging from racialized heads to mining scenes. Considering how works of art can shape a social order, Brisman explores what Jamnitzer’s etchings and goblets reveal about how goldsmiths shared ideas and how their patrons used commissioned works to legitimize their claims over land and the rights of others. Drawing on a range of textual and material evidence—including commentaries on Roman and customary laws, wills and civic statutes, printed designs, and firsthand study of lidded cups in dozens of major European institutions—this unprecedented study places the goldsmith at the heart of the era’s arguments about how people and lands should be subjugated. Brisman reveals the insidious side of these objects that were often used to advance socially conservative agendas, and she presents radical proposals for addressing inequity in the world of ornament prints.
Shira Brisman, associate professor of the history of art at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of Albrecht Dürer and the Epistolary Mode of Address, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
