Covered "Grapes" Cup with Bacchus

Description In Nuremberg, around 1600, such covered wine cups were called "Trauben" (grapes, cluster of grapes) cups. The cup was made from a sheet of silver beaten out into "grape" shapes before gilding. Covered cups of this immense size (requiring more than three quarts of wine to fill it) and impressive workmanship were commissioned as special gifts. Kellner's talent as a sculptor as well as goldsmith comes out in the elegant figure of the Roman goddess Diana atop the cup and the figure which serves as the stem of the cup, Bacchus, Roman god of wine. At his feet is the satyr Pan with his pipes.

Conservation

Date	Description	Narrative
11/13/1963	Treatment	cleaned; coated; reconstructed

Exhibitions

• World of Wonder. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1971-1972.
• Hearst the Collector. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles. 2008-2009.

Provenance [France]; [Russia] ca. 1736, by purchase [in France: excise and assay marks of St. Petersburg]; Rothschild Collection, prior to 1937 [mode of acquisition unknown]; Rothschild Silver Sale, Sotheby & Co., London, April 1937, lot 226; Hearst Collection [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Mr. C. C. Rounds, New York [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Walters Art Museum, 1958, by purchase.

Credit Museum purchase, 1958