Standing cup with cover

This oval cup with cover was part of the treasury of Louis XIV since the mid-1680s. Together with other hardstone objects in the king’s collection (see also 17.190.594 and 1982.60.134), it was originally displayed in the Galerie d’Apollon at the Louvre and was listed in various royal inventories. The number 318 incised in the gold mount underneath the foot corresponds to the inventory drawn up after the Revolution in 1791. The cup and base were cut of one kind of agate and the lid from another, all done in France between 1640 and 1660. The finely chased, partly enameled gold and gilded-silver mounts were created during the same period by a French goldsmith. The finial, consisting of a partly enameled stag on a base set with a diamond and rubies, was added during the late 19th or early twentieth century but before 1911 when the cup was sold at the Paris auction of the collection of Baron Carl Mayer de Rothschild