A coconut forms the bowl of this goblet. Finely carved reliefs and an elaborate silver-gilt mount have enhanced this exotic natural curiosity and turned it into a precious kunstkammer exhibit. The inside of the coconut is varnished so that the goblet could in fact be used to drink from.
The outside of the shell is decorated with three scenes from the biblical parable of the Prodigal Son. They begin on the front with the young man leaving home. In the second scene, we see him associating with prostitutes. And finally, there he is: having ended up with the swineherds. The precise and delicate craftsmanship of the unknown artist who carved this tale from St Luke’s gospel into the hard shell of a coconut about 1550, and the mastery with which he has enhanced the brittle material, are remarkable. The very detailed scenes are based on a series of etchings by Hans Sebald Beham, which were popular at the time.
With the voyages of discovery to the East Indies and the West Indies, princely collectors in Europe acquired new sources of amazing natural phenomena, including large numbers of coconuts, which European scholars in the sixteenth century believed grew on the seabed. German and Dutch goldsmiths used them to make imaginative goblets and playful drinking vessels.
- Location & Dating
- german (Nuremberg or Strasbourg?), 2nd quarter 16th century
- Material & Technique
- Silver, embossed, cast, chased, punched, engraved, cut, gilt; basse-taille enamel (only remnants preserved), coconut, carved, puttied inside / remnants of paint: green, white and red on the crowning figure on the lid
- Dimenions
- H 36,6 cm, Dm Kuppa 12,5 cm, Dm Fuß 11,0 cm / Gewicht: 710 g
- Museum
- Grünes Gewölbe
- Inventory number
- IV 330