Jim Peake
Head of Department
Lot 9
A fine Potsdam engraved goblet attributed to the workshop of Elias Rosbach, circa 1725-30
19 November 2025, 10:30 GMT
London, Knightsbridge£1,000 - £1,500
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A fine Potsdam engraved goblet attributed to the workshop of Elias Rosbach, circa 1725-30
The generous round funnel bowl finely decorated with a continuous frieze of six Bacchanalian children or putti, each in an animated dancing pose, some holding hands and others bunches of grapes, one raising a tumbler of wine, the rim and upper knop of the stem with formal borders of circlets, the base of the bowl, lower baluster stem and wide conical foot deeply cut in Hochschnitt with distinctive petal-like leaves, 21.6cm high
Footnotes
Elias Rosbach was a central figure in Brandenburg-Prussian glass cutting, particularly at the Zechlin glassworks. The motif of dancing children is found on several glasses from the Potsdam glassworks before it moved to Zechlin in 1736, and the decoration on this goblet likely dates to circa 1725-30 when Rosbach was still in Berlin. It was undoubtedly inspired by the earlier work of Gottfried Spiller. See lot 8 in this sale for a goblet similarly engraved with children by Spiller. The shape of goblet was popular in Potsdam for a number of years at the beginning of the 18th century but the stems had become more slender by the 1720s. A very similar goblet engraved with bacchanal children from the workshop of Elias Rosbach is illustrated by Jutta Götzmann and Uta Kaiser, Gläserne Welten (2017), p.156, no.93.