APPARENTLY UNMARKED, NORTHERN EUROPE, 17TH CENTURY

Zoomorphic cups were popular in the German and the Flemish countries during the 16th and 17th centuries. Many were created using exotic and highly prized materials such as nautilus shell, ostrich eggs or coconuts. Indeed coconuts, also called 'Indian nut' or 'nut of the sea', were not only rare, but were also believed to have medicinal and magical properties. This explains why many were crafted into drinking vessels mounted in precious metals. Owls were a favoured form together with the stag, boar, lion and horse. Owl cups were often presented as wedding gifts or as a trophy at crossbow competitions. The few surviving examples are not all consistently marked and are varyingly conceived, either standing on a terrace, clawing a branch or a prey, or without a stand. This owl shares a resemblance in the stiffness of the tail, the plumage, the flat claws and shape of the head with one in the British Museum given by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks, also unmarked and illustrated in V. Laloux, Le Bestiaire des Orfèvres, L'Oeil du Hibou, Lausanne, 1994, p. 139, and another marked for Straubing, circa 1567 in a private collection, illustrated op. cit., p. 132.