Turned cup and cover with inserts and original case

Unidentified

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 520

Made with a technologically advanced lathe, this turned goblet, with a large set of inserted cups and its custom case, would have been at home in a courtly Kunstkammer, or art cabinet, of the Northern Renaissance. Collectors not only valued works of art like this cup for their beauty, but also for the artistic and technological advancement required for their production. Scientific and artisanal knowledge was equated with the practical wisdom, self-mastery, and moral virtue required of a successful leader. A lathe (and an artisan) able to produce such precise ornamentation would have been rare, and this cup may have been made either by the master turners in the Alpine town of Berchtesgarden or the workshop of the Danish King Christian IV.

Turned cup and cover with inserts and original case, Unidentified turner, Berchtesgaden, Turned, carved, and stippled maple and plum, partly stained, German, Berchtesgaden

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Cup, cover, 5 of the concatenated cups, case

Turned cup and cover with inserts and original case, Unidentified turner, Berchtesgaden, Turned, carved, and stippled maple and plum, partly stained, German, Berchtesgaden
Turned cup and cover with inserts and original case, Unidentified turner, Berchtesgaden, Turned, carved, and stippled maple and plum, partly stained, German, Berchtesgaden
Turned cup and cover with inserts and original case, Unidentified turner, Berchtesgaden, Turned, carved, and stippled maple and plum, partly stained, German, Berchtesgaden
Turned cup and cover with inserts and original case, Unidentified turner, Berchtesgaden, Turned, carved, and stippled maple and plum, partly stained, German, Berchtesgaden
Turned cup and cover with inserts and original case, Unidentified turner, Berchtesgaden, Turned, carved, and stippled maple and plum, partly stained, German, Berchtesgaden
Turned cup and cover with inserts and original case, Unidentified turner, Berchtesgaden, Turned, carved, and stippled maple and plum, partly stained, German, Berchtesgaden
Turned cup and cover with inserts and original case, Unidentified turner, Berchtesgaden, Turned, carved, and stippled maple and plum, partly stained, German, Berchtesgaden
Turned cup and cover with inserts and original case, Unidentified turner, Berchtesgaden, Turned, carved, and stippled maple and plum, partly stained, German, Berchtesgaden
Turned cup and cover with inserts and original case, Unidentified turner, Berchtesgaden, Turned, carved, and stippled maple and plum, partly stained, German, Berchtesgaden
Turned cup and cover with inserts and original case, Unidentified turner, Berchtesgaden, Turned, carved, and stippled maple and plum, partly stained, German, Berchtesgaden
Turned cup and cover with inserts and original case, Unidentified turner, Berchtesgaden, Turned, carved, and stippled maple and plum, partly stained, German, Berchtesgaden

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