Beaker

Master GH

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The combination of matte snakeskin decoration with a gilded band of fully blossoming flowers is extremely rare. Only one other similar beaker is known, now in the Hungarian National Museum, Budapest, and that bears the mark of a different goldsmith. The engraved date 1683 is consistent with the object’s style. The mysterious mark GH probably refers to an unidentified master. Discovering the meaning of this mark will help to establish a more specific place of origin for the piece. Literature European Silver. Sale cat., Sotheby’s, Geneva, May 16, 1994, p. 67, no. 167. Judit H. Kolba. Hungarian Silver: The Nicolas M. Salgo Collection. London, 1996, p. 79, no. 57. References There is a very similar beaker in the collection of the Hungarian National Museum with a different mark published in Judit H. Kolba. Schätze des ungarischen Barock. Exh. cat. Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus Hanau. Hanau, 1991, p. 82, no. 42. [Wolfram Koeppe 2015]

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art