Drinking Cup (Bratina)

Description During the early 1600s, Dutch merchants were in Moscow actively pursuing the Russian fur trade. They brought gifts for the court that apparently included Dutch metalwork, which influenced the style of local craftsman. Their work, in turn, would have been prized as gifts to be taken back to Holland. This characteristic "bratina" (from the Russian "brat," meaning brother) was to be passed around at feasts. The embossed, chased decoration with masks and flowing forms draws on the work of Dutch silversmiths at mid-century, epitomized by Johannes Lutma.

Exhibitions

• Russian Art: Icons and Decorative Arts from the Origin to the Twentieth Century. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1959-1960.
• A Millennium of Christianity: Russian Art from The Walters Art Gallery. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1988-1989.
• Fabergé and the Russian Crafts Tradition: An Empire's Legacy . The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 2017-2018.

Provenance Count Aleksandr Alekseevich Musin-Pushkin, Saint Petersburg, before 1904, by purchase; Alexandre Polovtsoff (Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Polovtsov), Saint Petersburg and Paris, by purchase; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1929, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Inscriptions [Inscription] Along the edge: Се братина: Питiемъ не упиваисѧ, посудинои не оусмихаисѧ, еѧ бiриги. [Translation] The "bratina" says: “Do not get drunk from the drink [and] do not brag of [your] table plate [but] guard it.”

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters, 1929