The design of this tankard is attributable to Paul Flindt II (c. 1567-1631), whose published engravings provided silversmiths with numerous patterns for the decoration of silver in the Mannerist style. Flindt was himself a goldsmith as well as an engraver and medallist, and his nearly 200 surviving engravings from 1592-1618 provide a large selection of scenic panels found within strapwork containing grotesques and flowerpots, often featuring animals in landscapes such as here.
Flindt evidently based many of the figures of animals found in his landscapes on earlier published bestiaries, such as Cunrat Gesner's Historia Animalium printed in Nuremberg in the 1550s.
Here the animals featured are a sleeping dog, a lion and a unicorn each symbolising loyalty, strength and purity suggesting the tankard, which also serves as a trinkspiel (drinking game), could have been a wedding present.