Coconut cup

Johannes Fridericus Benedick

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The hunting scene engraved on the lip may to refer to the cup’s use after hunting trips when a welcome drink was offered to the most prestigious guests. The decoration is inspired by Virgil Solis’s prints, which were available to craftsmen in pattern books. By adding the turquoises, the goldsmith catered to the local taste for the Ottoman. Marked coconut cups from the Hungarian/Transylvanian region are extremely rare. Of the twenty cups preserved at the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest only one is marked. Literature Judit H. Kolba. Hungarian Silver: The Nicolas M. Salgo Collection. London, 1996, p. 60, no. 38. References Elemér Kőszeghy. Magyarországi ötvösjegyek a középkortól 1867-ig / Merkzeichen der Goldschmiede Ungarns vom Mittelalter bis 1867. Budapest, 1936, no. 1397 [maker’s mark]. For a coconut cup formerly belonging to a Hungarian aristocratic family, see Judit H. Kolba and Annamária T. Németh. Schätze des Ungarischen Barock. Exh. cat. Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus Hanau. Hanau, 1991, no. 18, pp. 73–4. [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