Coconut Cup with Biblical Scenes from the Life of David, 1577-78. Carving: Netherlands; mounts: London. Gilded silver and coconut shell, 22.9 × 11.2 × 11.6 cm. Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Mrs. Stanley Keith, 1951.72a-b.

Coconuts, a precious curio from the New World, were so highly prized in Europe during the early modern era that they were fashioned into elegant vessels by silversmiths. They made noteworthy additions to princely curiosity cabinets and may also have served a medicinal purpose. John Parkinson’s Theatrum Botanicum (1640), for instance, credits wine drunk from a coconut with curing colic, epilepsy, and rheumatoid disorders.