Covered coconut cup

This extravagant and almost impossibly balanced coconut cup with cover takes on the guise of a functional object but is really a vehicle for showing off incredible craftsmanship. From just a year later, 1607, and made by Frederiks Andries in Amsterdam, this cup perfectly marries the ‘exotic’ object, the coconut, with the native Dutch silversmithing tradition of weirdly wonderful naturalistic forms made popular in the auricular or Kwab style by artists like Adam and Paul van Vianen. The sculpted silver forms of turtles, dolphins, shells, fish, and finally the crowning finial of Neptune all nod to the source of the exotic goods in the Netherlands: Dutch maritime prowess. Coconuts may have come to early modern Europe from a number of tropical sources, and would have shown the owner of this cup to have ties with global trade. The original patron of this cup is not known—though they must have been both wealthy and well connected—but it was known to be in the collection of Anne-Louis-Alexandre de Montmorency, 7th Prince of Robecq, at the time of the French Revolution.