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Bottoms-up cup or stirrup cup (Sturzbecher)

ca. 1550–70
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 520
Bottoms-up cups must be held upside down to be filled. With no base to set them back down on, drinkers empty these cups in one gulp. Intended for use on horseback, they were part of “Godspeed” toasts drunk in honor of Saint Gertrude, patron saint of travelers, to mark a departure or farewell. This work was seized from Oscar Bondy (d. 1944) by Nazi officials in 1938 in Vienna and restituted to his widow, Elisabeth Bondy, in 1948.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Bottoms-up cup or stirrup cup (Sturzbecher)
  • Date: ca. 1550–70
  • Culture: German, Cologne
  • Medium: Salt-glazed stoneware
  • Dimensions: Height: 15 1/16 in. (38.3 cm)
  • Classification: Ceramics-Pottery
  • Credit Line: Gift of R. Thornton Wilson, in memory of Florence Ellsworth Wilson, 1954
  • Object Number: 54.147.60
  • Curatorial Department: European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

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Bottoms-up cup or stirrup cup (Sturzbecher) - German, Cologne - The Metropolitan Museum of Art