This drinking horn is a type of trick glass, intended to encourage social drinking. To start with, the horn cannot be put down until the drinker empties it completely. The trick aspect is in the shape of this glass. When you drink from it with the finial pointing down, you must crane your neck and hold it up high to drain the glass completely. Therefore, the natural thing to do is to drink from it with the finial pointing upwards. However, this creates a vacuum in the end of the glass which causes the final draught to release itself suddenly, with force. As a result, the drinker ends up with a wet face.

The inscription contains a pun, as it refers to the name of the owner of the glass, named Maerten de Droogh, but ‘droogh’ also means ‘dry’. It alludes to the way in which the glass works: my name is dry, even if I (the glass, or the drinker) is wet up to the neck, my name is still dry. In other words, even if the drinker is named dry, he will end up soaked.

The name Marten Droge is engraved, alongside other names, on a glass drinking dish in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The names are those of men close to Prince William of Orange, founding father of the Netherlands, and leader of the rebellion against the Spanish occupiers. Alongside the name Marten Droge is the year 1591 and the inscription 'sans estre ghys' [without being a Geus or 'Sea Beggar']. The Geuzen or Water Geuzen [Sea Baggars] were a group of vigilante, privateers or pirates who played an essential role in the liberation of the Netherlands during the Eighty Year’s War. The Merten de Droogh, whose name was engraved on our drinking horn, is almost certainly the same as Marten Droge, engraved on the dish in the Rijksmuseum. He was commander of a ship which, on 30th May 1575, helped to defeat the Spanish fleet in the Battle of Lillo on the Scheldt River. Droge towed the captured ship of the Spanish vice-admiral to Flushing. Later he held a prominent position at the Admiralty of the province of Zeeland. Of the other names, engraved on the Rijksmuseum dish, two others also occur on engraved drinking horns, similar to the V&A example, one of which is dated 1589. A later glass horn, dated 1630, is engraved with the arms of William of Orange’s son and successor Prince Maurits of Orange. It is plausible that the glass horns which were popular in the Netherlands during this period, refer to the similarly shape horns which feature in the arms of Orange Nassau.