Transylvanian gold cup

Text from Tait 1986:-

Origin: Probably Transylvanian, 17th century.

Provenance: None is recorded.

Commentary: In Read 1902 the Rudolph II gold medal seems to have been accepted as an authentic part of the covered cup and, therefore, an indication of its age and origin, which was given as “Hungarian or German, about 1600”. In Dalton 1927 the same view about its probable date was taken, although Read's attribution to a Hungarian workshop was dropped and, tentatively, another possibility was introduced – “German (Spanish?) about 1600”.

Today, in the light of several archaeological discoveries and new research Read's original attribution to a Hungarian workshop still seems the more convincing, although the dating of the different parts of this elaborately decorated gold covered cup remains more problematic. Certainly, the Emperor Rudolph II gold medal should not be regarded as evidence that the cup - in its present form - was made in his reign (1576-1612). There is nothing about the style or craftsmanship of this jewelled gold cup that would associate it with the court of Rudolph II or the imperial workshops in Prague, where he resided most of the time. The products of Rudolph's goldsmiths and the taste of his court have now been so clearly identified that there can be no question of including this piece among the products of that sophisticated and highly accomplished milieu.

The almost barbaric polychrome surface enrichment of the cup and cover belongs to the tradition of Transylvanian and Hungarian jewellery and goldsmiths' work in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which reveal the repeated impact of strong Turkish influences. The Oriental splendour of the massive gold and gem-studded crown of Prince Stephan Bocskay of Transylvania - a gift in 1605 from the Sultan Ahmed to the rebellious Prince but later captured by the Austrians (and now preserved in the Imperial Schatzkammer in Vienna) - has a vividly non-European character, which quite dramatically epitomises the qualities of this form of Islamic goldsmiths' work (see Hermann Fillitz, ‘Katalog der Weltchen und Geistlichen Schatzkammer’, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 1954, no. 59, illus.). The sending of this spectacular crown was merely a perpetuation of the Byzantine tradition, signifying the sender's acknowledgement of the Prince's rule and, at the same time, the sender's superiority - indeed, the Turkish forces of the Sublime Porte controlled most of Hungary apart from mountainous Transylvania. Prince Stephan Bocskay, who had his court goldsmith add the small cross to the front of the crown, was no doubt impressed by the skill of the Turkish craftsmen, who had so successfully combined rubies, emeralds, turquoises and pearls with a delicate foliate design executed in chased and nielloed gold.

Such high-quality Turkish goldsmiths' work was treasured at the leading European courts, as the Dresden Armoury (since 1832 known as the Historical Museum) can still amply testify - especially with those famous exotic gifts to the Elector Johann Georg I of Saxony from the Emperor Matthias (in 1617) and the Emperor Ferdinand II (in 1620) of a gold Turkish dagger and jewelled scabbard with two movable pearls in a hollow channel within the blade of gold damascened work, and of a gem-set silver-gilt ‘pusikan’ and ‘pallash’ (mace and sword) en suite (see HMD Inv. nos Y. 139 and Y.344-5). These well-documented masterpieces of early seventeenth-century date are an indication of the level of Turkish achievement in this field, and it is not surprising that the Transylvanian goldsmiths absorbed both the Turkish and the German influences during these centuries.

The four 'dress jewels' on the stem of the cup can be compared with several well-documented examples of similar style and quality. Firstly, there is the large collection of jewellery found during the Second World War in the tomb of Francis I, Duke of Szezecin (Stettin) and West Pomerania (b. 1577 - d. 1620), and now preserved in the National Museum, Szezecin. When the bombing opened up the burial vaults in the Ducal Castle, the body of the Duke Francis I was found surrounded by all his orders and jewels, including many of his best pieces that had been worn when his portrait was being painted (see Barbara Januszkiewicz in ‘Princely Magnificence, Court Jewels of the Renaissance, 1500-1630’, ed. A. Somers Cocks, exh. cat., Victoria and Albert Museum (Debrett’s Peerage Ltd), London, 1980, no. 125). Among the 'dress jewels' in the tomb there were a number of small gold enamelled items of less fine workmanship, some of which were brought to London in 1980 for the Victoria and Albert Museum's special exhibition (see no. 125n, 1, 2 and 3 with descriptions on p. 93 and illustrations in colour on p. 94 but captioned as 125n, a, b and c). These jewels are characterised by the same technical feature of filling flimsy 'cloisons' with a black, blue or white enamel and decorating the surface with applied dots of gold foil. Furthermore, two of them (no. 125n, b) are of a similar openwork design and rectangular outline, though lacking a gem-set central motif.

Secondly, there are the 'dress jewels' from the convent at Hall, near Innsbruck, which have an excellent provenance traceable to 1607 when a total of 213 dress jewels were given by the two daughters of the Hapsburg Archduke Charles, Duke of Steiermark - the young Archduchesses Maria Christierna (1574-1621) and Eleonora (1582-1620) - who had just joined this imperial religious foundation for ladies of the aristocracy. These jewels, which were intended only to be worn sewn on the garment, fall into a number of categories of varying quality and were, no doubt, the accumulation of a number of years, probably coming from several different workshops within the Hapsburg dominions.

Among the selection brought to London for the Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition (‘Princely Magnificence’ 1980, no. 72) were three variants of the form of the smaller pair of jewels on the stem of the gold cup. The quality of these three gem-set and pearl-studded 'dress jewels' (no. 72 b-c) is fairly high, but many of the smaller ones (nos 72d and 72e) are more characteristic of the work of the jewels on the gold cup. Most significantly, the trefoils with three pearls (no. 72d), the group that is most similar in technique, are each marked on the reverse with an applied tiny rectangle of gold stamped AB (in monogram). Among the 213 'dress jewels' are similar items with applied marks bearing the initials CK, BS and MG (in monogram).

This method of marking jewellery on the reverse with an applied rectangle of gold stamped with initials, sometimes in monogram, appears not to be a practice of German or Western European jewellers and goldsmiths in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries, although Anna Somers Cocks (‘Princely Magnificence’ 1980, p. 71) deduced that these jewels were probably made in the workshops of Southern Germany because the two Archduchesses had close links through their mother with the Munich court. In support of this attribution Anna Somers Cocks drew attention to a necklace of very similar workmanship in the Victoria and Albert Museum (‘Princely Magnificence’ 1980, no. 73a) which not only has the monogram RV applied on the reverse in the same way but also is said to have been found near Innsbruck (see Charles Truman, Reinhold Vasters – the last of the goldsmiths?, ‘The Connoisseur’, vol. 200, March, 1979, p. 158, fig. 11, for this RV mark and its attribution to Reinhold Vasters).

Recently more items of jewellery belonging to this distinctive group have been published as made around 1600 “and most probably in a South German centre, whether Augsburg, Vienna or Munich or perhaps a minor town” (see A Somers Cocks and C. Truman, ‘The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection’, London, 1984, nos 20-1). Both pieces are in the collection of Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, but neither has a history that can be traced back before the nineteenth century. The openwork pomander, which unscrews in the middle, has the monogram AT stamped on a gold rectangular 'label' and soldered to the inner rim, while the necklace, with its enamelled relief pendant of Juno and Jupiter en suite, is stamped GK on a gold 'label' soldered to the back of four of the eleven links of openwork rosettes that comprise the necklace.

In fact, a Transylvanian origin for this group seems to have been confirmed by the discovery in 1931-2 of a hoard of jewellery at Csenger (now preserved in the National Museum, Budapest). This hoard was published in full by József Höllrigl in a paper entitled ‘A Csengeri Ref. Templom Kriptájának Leletei’ (‘Archaeologiai Ěrteítö’, XLVII, Kiadja a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, Budapest, 1935, pp. 97- 114, pls 79-84). In addition to sixteen finger-rings, numerous chains and necklaces, two bracelets, a large aigrette, a pomander and several pendants of various sizes and forms, there were more than twenty-five 'dress jewels' (see p. 104 for a brief descriptive list and pl. 80 for a general illustration of the group). Many of these tiny jewels are of the same type as those from the convent at Hall, near Innsbruck (‘Princely Magnificence’ 1980, no. 72d-e), but of the larger ones seven are marked on the reverse with monogram initials (stamped on a square gold 'label'): VR occurs several times, AE (or ?AB) appears on the reverse of a gem-set jewel, HD appears on a pierced enamelled jewel of trefoil design, BH appears on a pierced jewel with three bosses each set with a pearl, but perhaps the most relevant in the context of the jewelled gold cup is the jewel marked IAL (the A and L conjoined). Illustrated in József HöIIrigl's article (pl. 80, no. 1, and pl. 81 for the reverse), it is now in the National Museum, Budapest (Inv. no. 630).

This openwork jewel is constructed with 'cloisons' filled with blue and white enamel, on to which dots of gold foil are applied, and with four curling gold 'tendrils', each decorated with one enamelled 'prong'. The use of gold strips to form 'tendrils' and join together various elements of the enamelled jewel is paralleled on the three serrated-leaf and the four cruciform 'dress jewels' on the sides of the bowl of the gold cup. Furthermore, the use of the four-petalled white-enamelled flowers on either side of the IAL jewel from Csenger is strikingly similar, including the applied dots of gold foil on top of the white enamel.

Two small groups of similar 'dress jewels' can be studied in Budapest and Bucharest. The former, preserved in the Decorative Arts Museum, Budapest, was acquired from an old Hungarian family. One of these jewels (Inv. no. 62.575) is marked on the reverse AB or, possibly, AVB; it demonstrates the use of 'cloisons' filled with white enamel on top of which a pattern of alternate circles and strokes is applied in gold foil. Perhaps more importantly it shows the use of a roundel of enamelled gold with a projecting 'bead' as a terminal motif at the extremities of the design, which was repeated on all four of the cruciform jewels on the bowl of the cup. Finally, it illustrates the use of gold, roughened and pounced to create a glinting texture, but deliberately not enamelled. In the AB (or AVB) jewel this use of pounced gold is confined to the elements of the design that are most in the background - that is, furthest from the eye; the same sparing use of this technique can be found on the three serrated-leaf 'dress jewels' and on the fourth jewel with its design of scrolls, floral motifs and pendant pomegranate. The second group are jewels of Transylvanian workmanship, preserved in the Bucharest Museum, having been discovered in Curtea de Arges, Biserica Domneascǎ (see Marin Matei Popescu, ‘Podoabe Medievale in Tǎrile Române’, Bucharest, 1970, p. 68, nos 145-7, fig. 76).

The caution with which these jewels have been referred to as 'dress jewels' is dictated by the Hungarian fashion for using clusters of these little jewels to create a glittering effect as, for example, on the very large silver-gilt aigrette in the form of a plume (Decorative Arts Museum, Budapest, no. 51, 1044) which was lent to the Victoria and Albert Museum special exhibition (‘Hungarian Art Treasures’, London, 1967, no. 199, illus. on p. 85). This seventeenth-century aigrette, which has many 'dress jewels' riveted on to three main 'plumes' of silver, also incorporates the enamelled pine-cone as a decorative motif in a similar manner to those attached to the three serrated-leaf jewels on the bowl of the cup.

Not one of the twelve jewels on the gold cup has been removed from the cloth of gold background to which they are affixed with silver threads and fine wires. Consequently, it is not known if the backs of the jewels reveal the same characteristics of workmanship or, indeed, if any of them bear monogram initials stamped on applied gold 'labels'. The cloth of gold seems not to be in a sufficiently robust state to justify unthreading the silver wire, which would inevitably put the textile at risk. There appears to be no obvious seam or join and it fits tightly round the bowl and stem of the cup.

The surviving Turkish customs documents testify to the vast trade in metal and silk threads for use in Hungary, presumably for inclusion in the fashionable embroideries of the wealthy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The portraits confirm this impression, and at least one extant documented example demonstrates the taste for combining 'dress jewels' with seed-pearls on a textile background: the famous bonnet-shaped head-dress of Katharine of Brandenburg, who married Gábor Bethlen, Prince of Transylvania, in 1625. After a betrothal ceremony in Berlin between the ambassadors, a magnificent wedding was held in Kassa in 1626. The seed-pearls on this bonnet, formerly in the family of Count Pálffy (now in the National Museum, Budapest), form a pattern of flowers and leaves with the 'dress jewels' placed at the centre of many of the flowers.

Few examples of this undoubtedly Austro-Hungarian taste for enriching the cloth with a dense pattern of seed-pearls and 'dress jewels' have survived, but in the treasuries of several Hungarian cathedrals (at Agram, Estergom and Györ) several bishops' mitres executed in this technique, like the mitre of Paul Bornemisza, Bishop of Györ (1553-8), with its combination of gemstones, pearls and embroidered design, serve to illustrate the skill at its most accomplished. Another remarkable - perhaps unique -survival is to be found among the art collection of the Grandmaster Maximilian I, still preserved in Vienna at the Schatzkammer des Deutschen Ordens. This powerful Grandmaster of the Order (1590-1618) was none other than the Archduke Maximilian, brother of the Emperor Rudolph II and Regent of the Tyrol. Like his brothers Rudolph and Albrecht, he was a keen collector and patron, and fortunately his two aigrettes (or hat-jewels) are both complete with their seed-pearl embroidered cloth backing and setting. Of the two the more relevant is the taller aigrette, in the centre of which is an early seventeenth-century gold enamelled equestrian roundel in high relief, framed by four table-cut rubies, each surrounded by four pearls. The translucent enamelled decoration on the gold background of the roundel is typical of Imperial court work c.1600, and the use of the seed-pearl-embroidered aigrette setting provides valuable evidence of the taste for combining these two very different media in a purely secular context.

The form of the cup itself is reminiscent of the so-called font-shaped silver cups of the early sixteenth century, for example, the 1515-16 covered cup belonging to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and presented by the founder, Bishop Richard Foxe (see N. M. Penzer, Tudor "Font-shaped" Cups, ‘Apollo’, December 1957, pp. 174ff., fig. VI). It has to be stressed that no comparable font-shaped form is known among the few remaining items of domestic gold and silver plate from Transylvanian and Hungarian workshops of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, but this is not surprising because virtually nothing survives from the beginning of the sixteenth century. Nor are there any examples of plate with a cloth of gold covering, but there are several outstanding survivals which illustrate the Hungarian tradition of making the enamelled surface decoration separately and then applying it to the exterior of the bowls, stems and covers of these standing cups. The most famous Renaissance tour de force in this technique is the famous Miklos Pálffy cup of 1598 (now in the National Museum, Budapest, Inv. no. 1940.19). It is made of gold and stands 42.8 cm high, with applied enamelled openwork motifs (trophies of arms, Renaissance masks and swags and purely ornamental scrollwork) on almost every part of the exterior; the one exception is a broad band of basse-taille enamelling in the Late Renaissance style below the lip of the bowl. Significantly, the cover is surmounted by a raised collar on which stands the gold enamelled figure of a soldier in Classical Roman attire.

Also made of gold is the magnificent Communion Cup of 1640 commissioned by György Rákóczi I, Prince of Transylvania, for the Calvinist Church of Kolozsvár (Cluj) - a city now in Romania but then a principal trading centre in Transylvania with a flourishing guild of goldsmiths, whose use of the local gold ore maintained a brilliantly high standard. The bowl of the Rákóczi Communion Cup is virtually encased by a network of Late Renaissance enamelled gold swags and scrolls that also serves to frame the eighteen small oval gold reliefs of scenes from the Life of Christ; the foot and stem also have applied enamelled openwork motifs adapted from the repertoire of early seventeenth-century ornamental design, but even so the talented goldsmith, István Brózer, has retained the standard Gothic band of pierced quatrefoils at the point where the stem joins the foot. (For a full account see Judit H. Kolba, A Brózer Kehelv, ‘Müvészettörtêneti Ertesítö’, XXVI, 1977, pp. 225-40, figs 1-30).

Another extremely fine and well-documented achievement in the art of enamelling on gold by a Transylvanian goldsmith has survived in the Dresden Armoury. This sword (Historical Museum Inv. no. Y 108) is dated and signed ‘Tho. Kapusino Transilvan fecit 1674’. Thomas Kapustran, of Klausenburg (Transylvania), was a brilliant craftsman, for not only is the handle covered with alternating bands of amethysts and enamel (white ground with floral motifs in translucent colours), but the sword guard has a broad bold design of enamelled leaves and flowers on a gold background, and the scabbard has mountings en suite (see Johannes Schöbel in ‘The Splendor of Dresden’ (eds G. Heres and W. Kiontke), New York, 1978, p. 120, no. 156, with illus.). The enamelling on parts of the gold cup is significantly related, although clearly not by the same hand.

During the second half of the seventeenth century silver plate, gilded and encased in applied openwork flowering scrolls of 'Transylvanian enamelling', became very popular in Hungary. This type of enamelling is characterised by its bright colours, particularly the strong yellow, the light opaque blue and the rich pinky-red combined with a clear white enamel; for an outstandingly well-preserved example in the National Museum, Budapest (Inv. no. 60.82.6) see col. pl. IV in Judit H. Kolba and Annamaria T. Nemeth, ‘Goldsmith's Work’, Corvina Magyar Helikon, Budapest, 1973.

This bright 'Transylvanian enamelling' is to be found on both wide zones of the cover of the cup and on the underside of the bowl, where the form of the cartouches, the winged cherub heads and the interlacing scrolls are all stylistically likely to appear in Hungarian goldsmiths' work shortly before the end of the seventeenth century. Indeed, the first half of the eighteenth century saw a change with the Hungarian goldsmith Mihaly II May, of Brassó (Braşov), introducing finely chased, interlacing scroll patterns in the late Louis XIV and Régence styles both for silver plate and for jewellery, as on the two large clasps at the end of a man's belt composed of rosettes set with gemstones and attached to cloth of gold (see a detail of one belt end in Kolba and Nemeth 1973, p. 44, pl. 61).

The appearance of a gold pyramidal diamond as a major decorative motif on the underside of the bowl of the Waddesdon gold cup is paralleled on the work of another Hungarian goldsmith of the first half of the eighteenth century, Johannes Georgius I Weinhold, of Nagyszeben (Sibiu). A parcel-gilt silver corsage inset (in the National Museum, Budapest, Inv. no. 60.300) shows how this goldsmith incorporated six of these pyramidal diamond forms into the border of his leafy interlace design, which is chased in a comparable fashion (illus. in Kolba and Nemeth 1973, pl. 59).

In conclusion, a Transylvanian or Hungarian origin for the twelve 'dress jewels' and for the covered cup seems entirely acceptable. However, the marked difference in quality and style between the jewels and the enamelled zones of applied ornament around the gold cup does not make a common origin seem likely. If, as seems probable, the four jewels on the stem may date from the early seventeenth century and the other eight from later in the

century, then this gold covered cup in the early sixteenth-century style may have been enriched with cloth of gold and these out-of-date unfashionable 'dress jewels' for a personal or a sentimental reason. A documented instance of a comparable use of Renaissance 'dress jewels' can be seen in the convent at Hall, near Innsbruck, where they are mounted on a gold chalice and two crowns for ciboria in the mid-seventeenth century - and so escaped destruction. The prominence accorded to the Turkish warrior on horseback (on the cover) is curious, although the Prince of Transylvania had since the sixteenth century enjoyed the protection of the Sublime Porte and, to a varying degree, was a vassal of the Sultan, nevertheless always enjoying an exceptional degree of independence. In the early 1680s Imre Thököly, who was then Prince of Transylvania, led the fight for freedom against the Hapsburg Imperial forces, but following the defeat of the Turks at the gates of Vienna in 1683 the Hungarian revolt collapsed and Thököly was sent into exile by the Turks. Thököly's kuruc warriors were, however, to remain a restive element, and under Prince Ferenc Rákóczi II, who had fled to Poland for safety, they began early in 1703 an aggressively successful rebellion. By 1707 most of the country was under the Prince's rule, and in 1708 he convened a meeting of the Diet (national assembly) at Patak, in the north-east of Hungary. Within two years the well-disciplined Imperial armies had slowly driven back the disintegrating rebel forces, and by 1711 the Prince was again in exile.

The gold covered cup in its present form seems to be an expression of this rebellious epoch in the last quarter of the seventeenth century; but as the enamelled Turkish equestrian group cannot be paralleled among extant Hungarian goldsmiths' work it cannot be closely dated, although it should be compared with a slightly earlier German appliqué gold enamelled openwork relief of a Turkish rider on the famous cloth of gold sword carrier, which has been preserved in the Elector of Saxony's collections in Dresden. This sword carrier, studded with turquoises and having a second appliqué relief of a princely rider opposing the Turk, is said (see Johannes Schöbel in ‘The Splendor of Dresden’ 1978, no. 149, p. 37 for col. pl.) to be the work of the Saxon court goldsmith, Gabriel Gipfel, before 1605. However, it had previously been published as a work of 1624 from the workshop of the Dresden goldsmith, Abraham Schwedler (see Erna von Watzdorf, Der Dresdner Goldschmied Abraham Schwedler und sein Kreis in ‘Zeitschrift für Kunst Wissenschaft’, XVI, 1962, pp. 102 ff., figs 15-17). It is a most handsome court object and, in its use of the gold enamelled Turkish warrior as a decorative and symbolic motif, is an important early seventeenth-century document in the history of jewellery. The gold brocade of the sword carrier is richly embroidered with gold thread and, according to Johannes Schöbel, was made en suite with the turquoise-studded, enamelled rapier bearing the arms of the Electors of Saxony and of Brandenburg, which he dates to 'before 1605'.

The use of the gold medal of Rudolf II inside the cover is more difficult to account for, although it could easily have been a later substitution or insertion. Thus, among the many silver standing cups that have been enriched in this way, mention may be made of the very fine mid-sixteenth-century example in the Waddesdon Bequest (see Read 1902, no. 100; also Hugh Tait, ‘The Waddesdon Bequest: The Legacy of Baron Ferdinand Rothschild to the British Museum’, London, 1981, pp. 71-3, fig. 49), the cover of which is now embellished with an Italian niello disc of the Lion of St Mark (set in the top of the finial) and (on the inside) an enamelled medal of Philip the Fair (1479-1506), father of the Emperor Charles V. As a nineteenth-century embellishment, the insertion of the gold medal of Rudolph II immediately beneath the openwork collar supporting the Turkish horseman might have been a simple demonstration of the temptation to 'gild the lily'.

Bibliography

• Charles Hercules Read, ‘The Waddesdon Bequest: Catalogue of the Works of Art bequeathed to the British Museum by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, M.P., 1898’, London, 1902, no. 66, fig. 11
• O.M. Dalton, ‘The Waddesdon Bequest’, 2nd edn (rev), British Museum, London, 1927, no. 66, pl. VIII.Further Bibliography:

  For comparison with a necklace in the Lehman Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of art which has similar jewels, see: Wolfram Koeppe, Clare Le Corbeiller, William Rieder [et al.], 'The Robert Lehman Collection. XV, Decorative Arts', New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012, p. 114.

  A further comparison is the mitre of Bishop Gyula, Venetian or Dalmatian mid 16th C, seed pearl ground, in the Treasury of Zagreb cathedral.

References

1. Read 1902: Read, Charles Hercules, The Waddesdon Bequest. Catalogue of the Works of Art Bequeathed to the British Museum by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, M.P., 1898, London, BMP, 1902
2. Dalton 1927: Dalton, Ormonde Maddock, The Waddesdon Bequest : jewels, plate, and other works of art bequeathed by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild., London, BMP, 1927
3. Tait 1986: Tait, Hugh, Catalogue of the Waddesdon Bequest in the British Museum; I The Jewels, London, BMP, 1986