A remarkably large number of lavish silver with the mark of Nuremberg goldsmith Hans Kellner survives, first and foremost in formerly princely collections. He appears to have moved to Nuremberg already as a married man. While Kellner worked on his masterpiece (from February 1582) his first wife died. In response to this personal tragedy he was given more time to complete his masterpiece. The following year, Hans Kellner remarried.

This beaker was probably once part of a set of Satzbecher (stacking beakers) and dates from the early Seventeenth-century when Kellner was a well-established goldsmith. He is recorded to have been commissioned by the Council of the Imperial City of Nuremberg as well as princes and prince bishops. He also enjoyed the patronage of the wealthy privileged merchant families of Nuremberg known as patricians. Only members of these families were ratsfähig, that is eligible to become members of the City Council.

This stacking beaker is decorated with the coat of arms of the families Löffelholtz von Colberg and Sitzinger and was possibly part of a set created for a marriage between the two families. The Löffelholtz family were aldermen in Nuremberg continuously between 1440 and the end of the independence of Nuremberg as Imperial City in 1806.
A stacking beaker with the same combination of coats of arms was once part of the Pringsheim Collection in Munich, and on display at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum.

Sir Arthur Gilbert and his wife Rosalinde formed one of the world's great decorative art collections, including silver, mosaics, enamelled portrait miniatures and gold boxes. Arthur Gilbert donated his extraordinary collection to Britain in 1996.