communion plate
Object numberP255
Titlecommunion plate
DescriptionBrass communion plate or alms dish formerly used in St. Peter's Church, Peterhead, the ruins of which stand on the Links beside the South Road. Possibly made in Flanders or Germany. 18th century.
The inscription, much-worn, ':RAHEWISHNBI:' is repeated four times around the rim, and seems, at first, to be meaningless, but this is probably a result of the production process. The plates were first roughly moulded into shape, and the ornamentation and inscription stamped on afterwards. Since the same stamp was used over and over again, the letters became worn and had to be re-copied onto another stamp. The craftsmen, either through ignorance of carelessness, made mistakes in these copies; sometimes they actually tried to introduce confusion, to give a mysterious appearance to the work. Originally the inscription should have read something like 'ICH WARTE DER ZEIT IN FRIEDEN' (I await the time in peace').
Production period18th century
Object nameplate, communion
Materialbrass
Dimensions
- whole diameter: 40.3 cm