A German silver-gilt mounted wood burl drinking cup, unmarked, possibly Augsburg, mid-16th century

Splendour & Power: Imperial Treasures from Vienna, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 16 August 2011 – 15 January 2012, pp. 160-161, cat. no. 40

The urge to collect unusual, even disturbing objects as well as the beautiful is as old as antiquity. It is said that Augustus Caesar (63BC-14AD), a man of generally frugal living, amassed pieces 'noteworthy for their antiquity and rarity,' among which were the excavated bones of long-dead sea monsters and wild beasts. This fascination for curiosities, natural and manufactured, continued for centuries after Augustus's time, waxing and waning with prevailing tastes. The first item in  A Catalogue and Description of the Natural and Artificial rarities belonging to the Royal Society and preserved at Gresham Colledge (London, 1685) by Nehemiah Grew (1641-1712), for instance, is 'AN ÆGYPTIAN MUMMY given by the Illustrious Prince Henry Duke of Norfolk,' followed by a comprehensive collection of human, animal, botanical and mineral remains and oddities. Among the 'Mechanicks' in Part IV of Grew's catalogue is a bewilderingly diverse man-made group, from 'A CUP Turn'd out of Sassafras Wood' and 'A little BOX Turn'd out of a Nutshell' to 'An Indian BRACELET for the Wrist. Made of the Scarlet Feathers of the Indian Sea-Curlew' and 'A CARVED Shell of MOTHER of Pearl. On which Andromeda stands naked upon the Shore, having her Arms fasten'd to a Rock with two Chains. . . . All done with extraordinary Art.'

 

Such were the contents of 16^th and 17^th 'Cabinets of Wonder' or Kunstkammer, the delight of European aristocrats and gentlemen of taste and learning. This present cup or goblet is just such an exotic exhibit which must have taken its place long ago in a collection of treasures. It furthermore belongs in a special category: that of peculiar products of nature (unique  burls of haphazard form) manipulated by a craftsman (in a lathe) to create a drinking vessel of striking design for a goldsmith to mount in costly engraved and mercury gilded silver.

 

This cup was shown at The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge in the exhibition, Splendour & Power: Imperial Treasures from Vienna (16 August 2011 – 15 January 2012), when Dr. Paulus Rainer, Curator of the Kunstkammer collection at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna wrote that, 'Few similar goblets are known and they were already sold as rarities at the time they were made.' He further remarked that one of the most famous examples of such a cup, or 'Welcome Goblet,' dated 1583 when it belonged to the Geizkofler family, is in the possession of the Städtische Kunstsammlungen in Augsburg (inv. no. 12173). For further information, see the exhibition catalogue, Welt im Umbruch : Augsburg zwischen Renaissance und Barock, Augusburg, 1980-1981, vol. II, p. 358-359, no. 739. For another, similar double burl goblet with engraved silver-gilt mounts, see: Sothebys Geneva, An Important Collection of European silver, 12 November, 1980, lot 277