Nautilus Cup
c. 1650 (etching), c. 1670 (mount)
Artist
Artist
In the 16th and 17th centuries, nautilus cups were among the most treasured objects in chambers of art and wonders (Kunstkammern in German)—collections of natural marvels and skillfully crafted artworks that became popular with princely collectors in Europe. The National Gallery of Art has acquired its first nautilus cup (c. 1650, etching; c. 1670, mount), an extraordinary object that may have been made for a member of the Swedish royal family.
The pinkish white shell, shaped like an oval bowl, is etched with an elaborate design that includes monstrous fish and fantastic birds amid vegetation. The decoration was likely made by a specialist working in Amsterdam around 1650. The shell then made its way to Sweden, where an unknown silversmith created the intricate mount featuring a siren gliding over the ocean. The cup appears to have been one of a pair commissioned during the late 17th century by a collector in Sweden—perhaps even the king. Both cups were recorded in the collection of King Carl XV in the 19th century.
Nautilus cups speak to the emerging globalism of the 17th-century economy: the shell comes from the oceans of the Indo-Pacific region and would have traveled to Europe on a Dutch trade ship.
West Building Main Floor, Gallery 50
Artwork overview
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Medium
nautilus shell (nacreous layer with etched low relief), silver, and gilded silver
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Credit Line
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Dimensions
height: 32 cm (12 5/8 in.)
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Accession
2022.124.1
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Possibly the Swedish royal family, Stockholm. By 1909, the Wachtmeister family, Knutstorp Castle, Scania, Sweden;[1] by descent in the Wachmeister family until Countess Ebba Wachmeister, Knutstorp Castle, Scania, Sweden; acquired 2017 by Kunstkammer Georg Laue, Munich; purchased 2022 by NGA.
[1] The cup was published in 1909 as belonging to the Wachtmeister collection at Knutstorp Castle in Svenska Slott och Herresäten: vid 1900-talets början, vol. 2, p. 186. According to oral tradition in the Wachtmeister family, the cup was given as a wedding gift to a family member by a close friend of Queen of Luise of Sweden around 1860. It is most likely the counterpart to a similar nautilus cup in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, which was acquired as a bequest from King Karl XV in 1873. Given the similarities between the cups, it is reasonable to conclude that the Swedish royal family acquired two etched nautilus shells around 1670 from Amsterdam to be mounted as a pair of cups, which were kept in the royal collections until the latter half of the 1800s. See email dated 30 August 2022 from Virginie Spenlé of the Kunstkammer Georg Laue, Munich in NGA curatorial files.
Associated Names
Bibliography
2023
Dickerson III, C. D. "Gifts and Acquisitions." _Art for the Nation_no. 67 (Fall 2023): 25, repro., fig 20.