Prints were a key source for Beri in fashioning this tankard. Its form was made popular through the printed designs of Bernhard Zan. Scrollwork cartouches frame three oval reliefs filled with animals: a unicorn before an urban structure, a grazing horse in a landscape, and a recumbent lioness or panther near a well and tower. These animal scenes follow prints from a Thierbuch (or book of animals), published by Jost Amman and Hans Bocksberger in Frankfurt in 1579, that was an especially common source for metal-workers.

Literature
Judit H. Kolba. Hungarian Silver: The Nicolas M. Salgo Collection. London, 1996, p. 46, no. 24.

References
A tankard with a similar handle was sold by Dr. Fischer Kunstauktionen in Heilbronn, sale no. 181, no. 4.
Another tankard, decorated similarly with animals within oval reliefs, was sold by the same house, sale no. 18, no. 232.
Elemér Kőszeghy. Magyarországi ötvösjegyek a középkortól 1867-ig / Merkzeichen der Goldschmiede Ungarns vom Mittelalter bis 1867. Budapest, 1936, no. 574 [maker’s mark].
Important English, Continental and American Silver and Gold. Christie’s, New York, May 17, 2011, no. 126.

[Wolfram Koeppe 2015]