Lot 54. A Zurich silver gilt goblet in the form of a stag, Marks of Hans Caspar Gyger, circa 1640. H 31.9 cm, weight 908 g. Estimate: €250,000 - €280,000. Courtesy Kunsthaus Lempertz

On a two-tiered oval base, the lower section with embossed swirls on dotted ground, the upper designed as a finely chased earth mound base. The shaft designed as a model of a leaping stag with front hooves raised. The entire body with finely engraved fur. The head of the stag can be removed to form a beaker

Literature: Cf. an identically formed stag goblet made by Gygers dated 1645 in the Historisches Museum Bern, illustrated in Wyss, Handwerkskunst in Gold und Silber, Bern 1996, p. 69, no. 11. The same museum houses a columbine cup made for the Gesellschaft zu Pfistern, illustrated ibid. p. 65, no. 7. For Augsburg examples cf. Seling 1980, no. 149, 455, 456, and a stag in the collection of the landgraves of Hesse-Kassel, illustrated in Bestandskatalog der Goldschmiedearbeiten des 15. - 18. Jahrhunderts, Kassel 2003, no. 85.