Lot 58. A coconut cup with continental silver-gilt mounts, marked with a crowned rampant lion to left, circa 1550. Estimate 15,000 — 20,000 GBP. Photo Sotheby's.

circular base chased with broad oval foliate strapwork reserves interrupted by gothic leaves and hatched V-shapes, repeated below the glased finial painted with amorials, etched rim, on double vase stem, original mark on foot only, also with early 19th century Vienna control marks on body and foot; 24.4cm., 9 1/2 in. high

Provenance: Sotheby's Geneva, May 1997 lot 186

Note: The distinctive broad oval shaped onrnament on the foot can be found, amounst other pieces of silver from the 1530-50 period, on a Nuremberg cup of 1542 in the Berlin Kunstgewerbermuseum and another Nuremberg cup of 1535 in the National museum Copenhagen, See: Heinrich Kohlhausen, Nürnberger Goldschmiedekunst des Mittelalters und der Dürerzeit 1240-1540, nos. 474 and 475, illus. 689 and 691.