Art: Chalice in Brooklyn

And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, “which is shed for many for the remission of sins.—Matthew XXVI, 27-8.

Nowhere in or out of the Bible is there to be found a better description of the Cup of the Last Supper. For a thousand years that drinking vessel has been the object of pious search, the subject of revered romance, throughout the Christian world. Quietly on view in the Brooklyn Museum last week went a great egg-shaped goblet which hundreds of devout folk believe to be the Holy Grail itself. Though in all historical accuracy it probably is no such thing, it is certainly one of the oldest pieces of Christian art extant.

With a capacity of two and a half quarts, the crude cup is of silver and devoid of ornament. Its rim has been turned to make a smooth surface for drinking. It rests in a loose silver filigree holder of elaborate workmanship which shows, in a framework of vine leaves, birds and flowers, two figures of the youthful and the mature Christ and ten Apostles and Saints. All the faces are individual portraits. Though there is no way of dating the inner cup, most experts seem to agree that the large outer holder was made not later than the last half of the First Century.

Owner of this ancient treasure is a Syrian antique dealer named Fahim Joseph Kouchakji, who is careful not to claim too much for his cup. As exhibited last week, it is referred to only as the Great Chalice of Antioch, but Mr. Kouchakji has published at his own expense a vast two-volume monograph by famed Antiquary Gustavus Augustus Eisen, which gives the reader much to think about.

For many years the firm of Kouchakji Frères has had a practical monopoly on excavations on the site of ancient Antioch, the city in Asia Minor where Christians were first called by that name. In 1910 a party of Arab workmen who had often been employed by the Kouchakjis came upon a heap of buried treasure that contained, among other things, a cross, three book covers and two chalices all of silver and all of excellent workmanship. The finders, with a shrewd idea of their worth, traded cross, covers and chalices to a syndicate of Arab merchants, who after a battle royal of bargaining sold them to the Kouchakji brothers for a stiff price. None is for sale. On the eve of the First Battle of the Marne the Kouchakji treasures were moved from Paris to Manhattan for safety. In April 1915, old Professor Eisen called on Dealer Kouchakji to discuss a forthcoming book on antique glass. When the learned Doctor inspected the treasures from Antioch, he opined that the book covers, the cross and the smaller chalice were immensely valuable, possibly 4th Century work. When he saw the Great Chalice he felt like Parsifal. Boiled down, his arguments in behalf of its historic worth are as follows: ¶ The decoration of the outer cup corresponds remarkably with other authenticated ist Century Roman pieces. ¶ The earliest known reproductions of the Eucharist, in the 3rd and 4th Centuries, give it exactly the form of this cup. Christians in 75 A. D. were already numerous but very poor. The outer cup must have cost a great deal of money which would only be spent on an object of the greatest religious importance. ¶ Though, the outer cup was gilded twice to preserve it, the silver of the crude inner cup was never touched.¶ The faces of Christ and the Apostles are certainly portraits, not conventionalized types. Dr. Eisen has devoted pages of documented research to his identification of the Great Chalice of Antioch, asks significantly : What other cup, some 30 years after the Crucifixion, would have been worth all this trouble and expenses?