The artist’s draft for this chalice is from the Benedictine Archabbey in the upper Danube Valley, Beuron, Germany. The Bueron Art School created forms using elaborate combinations of circles and equilateral triangles. Normally these shapes aren’t overtly seen in their art, but in this exquisite diagram we can see all the thought and artistic choices that went into the design.

We love this print for its beauty and its Platonic implication of the ideas that inform the physical world. This is an especially nice gift for anyone in the sciences or engineering, and of course for priests. We immediately put it up at our house, even thought we are neither scientists nor engineers nor priests! :) It looks great in one of our old wooden bookshelves.

The June 1912 date in the lower right hand corner we believe was a document control mark used so the goldsmiths could make sure they had the most recent drawing. The Archabbey had huge additions built during the 19th and 20th Centuries, with many artist’s concept paintings and drawings used in planning, such as this one. To give an idea of the Archabbey’s size, their library has over 400,000 books.

The print is really sharp, and the color is subdued but rich. The print is long out of copyright and is now in the public domain. We spent considerable time restoring it. We print it on special art paper with archival quality pigments, rated to last for many generations without fading when kept out of the direct sun.

8.5 x 11 acid-free archival paper, with about an inch-and-a-third of white space around the picture, so the image is smaller than the paper.

Cardboard backer. Enclosed in a tight-fitting, crystal clear bag. Comes with the above story of the image.

Standard size. If you would like it framed, please select a frame above, under "Framing".

Text and Image restoration (hence the whole new image) copyright © Sue Kouma Johnson