Lot 770. A South German turned ivory cup, first half 17th century;  height 9 3/4 in., 24.8 cm. Estimate 30,000 — 50,000 USD. Lot sold 27,500 USD. Photo Sotheby's

the stepped circular foot resting on three scrolling feet, divided by three registers of openwork designs, a ring of arched petals surrounding the thick tapering spiral stem rising to a gadrooned knop supporting a narrow, shallowly gadrooned cup, an old collection label underneath bearing the handwritten number "2561" and a similar label inside the cup bearing the handwritten number "33."

Provenance: Sotheby's, Collection of the Margraves of Baden, Baden-Baden, October 5-21, 1995, lot 284

Note: The present cup incorporates both geometrically turned and freely-carved forms: the scrolling feet and organically-twisting stem contrast with the carefully turned plinth and delicately gadrooned cup.

The cup bears two numbers representing inventories of the Grand Dukes of Baden. Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden (1826-1907) assembled a private Kunstkammer collection after 1879 in the rooms of the former Grand Ducal Naturaliencabinet in the Residenzschloß, Karlsruhe, and an 1883 inventory by Karl Koelitz (Beschreibendes Inventar de Aller Höchsten Privatsammlung Kuntgewerblicher Gegenstände) lists the present cup as inventory number 2561. It later appears in the inventory made by Richter of works of art brought to the Neues Schloss Baden-Baden after the property division of the Grand Ducal house and the state Baden in 1919, as inventory number 33. See Sotheby's, Die Sammlung der Markgrafen und Grosshersöge von Baden, Baden-Baden, October 5-21, 1995 for a detailed discussion of the collections and inventories.

Sotheby's. Property from the Collections of Lily & Edmond J. Safra - Volumes I-VI. New York | 18 Oct 2011 - www.sothebys.com