Coconut Cup with Scenes from the Life of David

Applied Arts of Europe

1577/78
Shell: 17th century replacement

English or Netherlandish

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.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Applied Arts of Europe

Title: Coconut Cup with Scenes from the Life of David
Place: London (Object made in:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1577–1578
Medium: Silver gilt and coconut shell
Dimensions: 22.9 × 11.2 × 11.6 cm (9 × 4 3/8 × 4 9/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Mrs. Stanley Keith
Reference Number: 1951.72a-b
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/74879/manifest.json

Rolf Fritz, Die Gefässe aus Kokosnuss in Mitteleuropa, 1250–1800 (Mainz am Rhein: 1983), pp. 108–09, no. 123, pl. 65.
Antiques vol. 95, no. 6 (June 1969), p. 818, no. 6.
“Three Centuries of English Silver,” Los Angeles County Museum Bulletin of the Art Division vol. 3, no. 3 (Fall 1950), no. 7, fig. 3.
“Elizabethan Cocoanut Cup,” Connoisseur (May 1938), p. 260; advertised in same issue by Peter Guille, p. 41.
Connoisseur (June 1937), p. 360 (ill.).

Art Institute of Chicago, Renaissance Decorative Arts from Chicago Collections, March 2–June 14, 1987, cat. 36
Los Angeles County Museum, Three Centuries of English Silver, September 29–November 12, 1950, no. 7.

Victor Rothschild [according to letter in curarotial file].

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.