Wine goblet

This glass depicts a story from Amsterdam folklore that recounts where babies came from. According to one version of this tale, newborns grew on trees in Volewijk, a marshy piece of land north of Amsterdam that could only be reached by boat across the river IJ, where they were picked by their parents. Other versions of the tale refer to babies growing in a cabbage patch, which is the version on which this glass is based. The lantern on the father’s nose, refers to a so-called ‘neuskijker’, (literally nose watcher), a shipping term designating the sailor who had to watch out for danger on the ship’s bow.

The inscription just below the rim “DAT ‘T SCHÙÝTIE,, WEL AF MAG LOPEN” [may this boat end well] also derived from shipping, and was frequently used on glasses to toast a newly launched ship. In this instance, the toast is a reference to impending childbirth.

Although the glass is not signed, the engraving has been attributed to Jacob Sang who was highly skilled in the difficult technique of wheel engraving. In this technique, the engraver used a lathe and held the goblet with both hands against the underside of a rotating wheel to cut into the surface of the glass. Differently sized wheels were selected to create different effects.

Sang was born in Erfurt (Thuringia) in ca. 1720 and became the most celebrated wheel engraver in The Netherlands. From about 1748 until 1785, he worked in Amsterdam where he ran a glass shop, called ‘In de Engelsche Glaswinkel’ (in the English Glass shop). According to an advertisement in the Amsterdamsche Courant of September 1785, his shop offered English and German polished and engraved glassware “as well as artistic goblets”. The artist was famous for his very detailed engraving, as is clearly seen here in the depiction of the seated woman’s jewelry. The use of marks placed over the letters U and Y in the inscription is also typical for Sang’s work.