It is not possible to identify the Antwerp silversmith who made this superb model, but whoever it was has realised with perfection the confidence and character inherent in this animal. Silver models of magpies are seemingly unknown outside this example, but the bird has an ancient pedigree as a heraldic animal and features in a great number of prints and paintings, often from Antwerp, from at least the 15th century. The bird’s chattering is silenced in The Nativity (circa 1480)1 by Piero della Francesca, and it perhaps acts as a warning against loose talk in the Antwerp master Peter Breughel’s Magpie on the Gallows of 1568, made for an unknown patron.2

The animal is included in numerous Flemish prints and paintings of the ‘Parliament of Birds’ where the magpie challenges the peacock’s presumption of becoming their ruler based on his beauty and asks 'You may be beautiful, but will you protect us from the eagle, will you be provident and wise?'.

Birds on a Riverbank, Jan van Kessel the Elder, Bruges, 1655, private collection

The fable is from the Greek original where a jackdaw provided the challenge and was altered to become a magpie by the Bruge poet Edouard de Dene (1505-1576), published in 1567 and repeated by Joost van der Vondel of Amsterdam, in their emblem books with prints by the Flemish painter and engraver Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder. The number of 17th century Antwerp artists who painted this magpie fable is noteworthy and includes Frans Snyders the elder (1579–1657), Paul de Vos (1595-1678), Jan van Kessel the Elder (1626-1679), and Peter Boel (1622-1674).3
This fable may have had particular resonance in Antwerp in the mid-17th century during the Eighty Years' War when the city was besieged by the armies of the Dutch Republic and France. One Antwerp-hallmarked item on this theme is a silver-mounted shell cup, made for the Guild of Crossbowmen, with an inscription celebrating the end of the war in 1648.4

Notes
1. National Gallery, London, NG908

2. Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt

3. L. Wepler; Stories in pictures from the world of birds: The courageous magpie; Simiolus Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art; 2011; 35(1): pp.91-99

4. Chefs-d’œuvre d’orfèvrerie de collections privées; Gent; Bijlokemuseum; 1985, p.112