The State Hermitage Museum: Exhibitions

Cups by Nuremberg goldsmiths

The virtual exhibition introduces cups by famous Nuremberg masters, a small part of the extensive collection of German silverware. The collection's core is silverware purchased in Germany since the time of Peter I and even since the time of his father Tsar Aleksey Mikhaylovich for the Imperial Family and the Court. The dynastic collection was added to over the entire 18th century; it is closely related to the foundation and development of the new capital of the Russian Empire.
The 16th century was truly the golden age of German art of goldsmithery. One of its principal centers was Nuremberg, a free imperial city lying at the crossroads of major commercial thoroughfares. Albrecht Dürer's birthplace, it was a center of Renaissance culture. Especially remarkable in the variety of German silverware of the 16th-17th centuries are drinking vessels. The most characteristic of them were lobing cups, double or with covers. One of the favorite forms of lobing vessels were cover cups in the form of aquilegia flower, Ageleybecher. By the 1480s, lobing cups gained wide currency, and German masters were unequaled in their creation. Dürer's first designs of silverware inaugurated in German art of goldsmithery motifs taken from nature such as frogs, snails, snakes and lizards cast with the use of live models; the rustique style thus entered the German silversmith's art. These figurines were to surprise the onlooker with their bizarre and beautiful appearance. Another aspect of the rustique style was the use of natural shells or their imitations from semiprecious stones or metals, ostrich eggs, narwhal teeth and coconut shells to fabricate cups, bowls and other vessels for purely decorative purposes. Since early Middle Ages, works from these materials had a symbolic meaning and were regarded as something mysterious. For example, ostrich egg were believed to be laid by Phoenix and narwhal teeth were taken to be horns of the mythical Unicorn as late as the 18th century.
Figure cups were very popular in Germany. The German burgher thought it fit to drink from a horse cup, owl cup or ship cup during his joyous feasts. Many of these fun cups were put to serious use as well: they were given as gifts for a birth, baptism, betrothal, wedding or other important events in a person's life. There were also cups that as time passed were losing their initial symbolic meaning and turning into fun cups, sort of toys. These were ship cups. In the medieval period they had a sacred meaning, being used as wine vessels; they were to protect the drinker from possible dangers. In the 17th century ship cups gradually lost this meaning becoming simple table decorations.

Ship
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