Jim Peake
Head of Department
Lot 8
A remarkable Potsdam engraved goblet by Gottfried Spiller, circa 1700-10
19 November 2025, 10:30 GMT
London, Knightsbridge£2,000 - £3,000
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A remarkable Potsdam engraved goblet by Gottfried Spiller, circa 1700-10
The round funnel bowl with a continuous landscape scene of five children playing 'Crosse' or Colf, each animated nude figure holding a club-like stick in the field, one clasping his stick far above his head taking aim at the polished ball before him, the rim with a band of stiff-leaves, the base of the bowl, lower baluster stem and wide conical foot each deeply cut in Hochschnitt with distinctive petal-like leaves, 17.5cm high
Footnotes
Gottfried Spiller perfected depictions of children such as this on glass, giving them an almost sculptural quality. Their chubby features and the dynamic curls of their hair are characteristic features of Spiller's work, see for example the covered beaker from the Ernesto Wolf Collection illustrated by both Brigitte Klesse and Hans Mayr, European Glass from 1500-1800 (1987), no.128 and Jutta Götzmann and Uta Kaiser, Gläserne Welten (2017), pp.122-3, no.56. Compare also to the celebrated group of beakers decorated with bacchanalian children by Spiller, see Robert Schmidt, Brandenburgische Gläser (1914), pl.7, nos.2 and 3 and pl.8 and Götzmann and Kaiser (2017), pp.149-53, nos.87 and 88. Another is illustrated and discussed by Dedo von Kerssenbrock-Krosigk, 'Goldrubinglas und Kristallschnitt', in Götzmann and Kaiser (2017), pp.22-3, fig.12.
The scene is taken from 'Les Jeux et Plaisirs de l'Enfance' (The Games and Pleasures of Childhood) by Claudine Bouzonnet-Stella (1641-1697), a series of fifty engravings published in Paris in 1657 which depict putti playing various games, after original drawings by her uncle Jacques Stella (1596-1657). The scene on the present goblet is Plate 41, 'La Crosse'. The book served as a visual source for 18th century decorative arts, see for example the Doccia tea service in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. no.46.103a, b) and a Meissen plate in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no.BK-1960-9-A) from a service decorated with 'Kinder à la Raphael'. The 'Crosse' game depicted is likely a version of Colf, an early Dutch stick and ball game which preceded the modern game of Golf and has a number of similarities to Hockey. It was played over several centuries in various forms on both land and ice. There are a considerable number of 17th century Dutch portraits of children holding Colf or Kolf clubs, suggesting that it may have been a children's game.