Jim Peake
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Lot 4*
An exceptional engraved armorial Nuremberg goblet, circa 1670-90
27 November 2024, 10:30 GMT
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £5,376 inc. premium
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An exceptional engraved armorial Nuremberg goblet, circa 1670-90
The deep round funnel bowl finely decorated with a riverside landscape scene depicting the myth of Actaeon changed into a Stag, the young hunter standing beside the river wearing Roman costume, a pair of antlers sprouting from his head, brandishing a spear in his right hand and with his left arm raised, his two hounds at his feet, the goddess Diana standing in the water before him, covering her modesty and pointing at Acteon with her left hand, three nymphs around her and a fourth nymph reclining nude beneath a tree beside them, the water picked out in diamond-point, all beneath a radiant sun, the reverse with a crowned coat of arms with a chevron between three roses, flanked by tied palm fronds, beneath a banner inscribed 'CASTIS OMNIA CASTA' (To the pure everything is pure), set on a distinctive tall multi-knopped stem with a hollow knop flanked by trios of mereses, above a hollow baluster section terminating in further mereses, the spreading circular foot with a foliate garland and neatly folded at the footrim edge, 23cm high
Footnotes
The scene on this goblet recounts the myth of Diana and Actaeon, described by Ovid in Book III of his 'Metamorphoses'. Actaeon stumbles across the nude Huntress bathing with her nymphs in a woodland glade. Enraged by the intrusion, Diana transforms him into a stag, after which he flees and is devoured by his own hounds. The young hunter is shown here only partially transformed, with horns but a human head and body. The scene is after an original etching by Antonio Tempesta (Italian, 1555–1630) published as Plate 25, 'Dianae aspectu Actaeon in ceruum', in 'Metamorphoseon' by the Dutch cartographer Wilhelmus Ianssonius (Willem Janszoon Blaeu) in Amsterdam in 1606. The motto above the unidentified coat of arms is a biblical quote from the Latin Vulgate to Titus, 1:15. The myth was a favourite during the Renaissance, with Actaeon surprising Diana being the most popular scene. A Nuremburg engraved tumbler with another version of the scene was sold by Phillips on 9 June 1999, lot 11.
The present goblet has a number of remarkable similarities to an example in the glass collection at the Veste Coburg, illustrated by Erich Meyer-Heissig, Der Nürnberger Glasschnit des 17. Jahrhunderts (1963), p.100, no.229, which depicts a comparable scene of Actaeon and Diana bathing, but in which Actaeon has already been transformed into a stag. The way in which the figures, hounds and foliage of the trees have been engraved, together with the distinctive ripples on the surface of the water in diamond-point, are all reminiscent of the present lot and the same hand must certainly be responsible. Unfortunately, the master engraver responsible is unknown, but the style and quality is reminiscent of pieces by contemporary masters including Hermann Schwinger and Johann Wolfgang Schmidt.