Cup and cover, the 'Maqdala Cup' or 'Napier Cup', silver, Birmingham hallmarks for 1872-73, mark of Frederick Elkington for Elkington & Co.

Cup and cover, silver. The cup rests on a circular foot with a plain, moulded edge, on which sit four equally spaced trench mortars facing outwards, two diametrically opposite each other with looped laurel swags supporting the short, squat stem, a bulbous knop surmounted by concave mouldings with a crown of lobed lobed sections in between. Above is a cup, the sides flaring outwards with two opposing panels in repoussé of battle scenes representing the British army's siege of Maqdala of 1868, framed with a lobed crest and an anthemion; in between are sprays of laurel framing a grotesque mask. The domed lid is detachable with a central knop encircled with a laurel frieze and a crown of downward pointing anthemia. On the circular platform is a realistically modelled elephant supporting an elephant driver (mahout) and a mortar.

Purchased with support from the Horn Bequest and the Murray Legacy

The 'Maqdala Cup' or 'Napier Cup' was presented by Robert Napier (1810-90), Lord Napier (and later 1st Baron Napier of Maqdala) to the 63rd West Suffolk Regiment in January 1873 as the winners of a shooting competition in India. The cup has two panels decorated in low relief depicting the British army's 'punitive' raid five years earlier on the Ethiopian Emperor Tewedros' fort at Maqdala in 1868, a violent reprisal led by Napier that secured the release of British hostages, destroyed the fort and led to the suicide of the Emperor and the looting of his treasury. The base of the cup is decorated with garlanded howitzers while on the lid is a marching elephant carrying a howitzer. Triumphalist and caricaturist, the substantial silver cup embodies the debates around the legacies of empire in museum collections.

The cup was acquired by the V&A in 2020 not as a celebration of the British Army's actions at Maqdala but to communicate the reception in Victorian Britain of military campaigns at the height of the British Empire and to shed light on the mythologizing, through design and material culture, of military generals as heroes of the time and military exploits as legends that fed into a growing sense of national identity. The cup's meaning has therefore changed, enabling audiences to gain a more holistic understanding of imperial history and modern challenges to aspects of Britain's past.

The cup also makes a stark counterpoint to other items in the V&A's collection that were looted during the raid on Maqdala. The expedition mythologised on the cup was a 'punitive' raid carried out in 1868 by the armed forces of the British Empire against the Ethiopian Empire. During the 19th century Britain did not colonise Ethiopia but sought to exert pressure on the Emperor for wider strategic aims in north-eastern Africa. When Tewodros received no reply to his request to Queen Victoria for support for his domestic military campaigns he imprisoned the British consul and took several European hostages. His refusal to release the prisoners caused an outcry in the British press. Lieutenant General Sir Robert Napier gathered together an expeditionary force of 13,000 British and Indian troops, 26,000 camp followers, and 40,000 animals. In April 1868, the forces reached Maqdala, stormed the fortress, secured the release of the hostages, recorded the Emperor's suicide with a sketch and looted items of value which could be auctioned off to raise money for the military. Under the stewardship of Richard Holmes, a manuscripts curator at the British Museum, many Ethiopian objects were taken to England. The British Government transferred some of them to national museums, including, in 1872, a gold chalice (M.26-2005) and a gold crown (M.27-2005) in the V&A.

After the Ethiopian campaign, Napier was lauded in the British press as a hero and the government elevated him to the peerage as Baron Napier of Maqdala on the 11th July 1868, granting him a pension for life. Maqdala boosted Napier's reputation as ruthless military leader and in April 1870 he was appointed Commander in Chief, India, the highest rank in the British Army. As a commander, Napier took a personal interest in improving the shooting ability of troops under his command. This is one of two almost identical cups known to have been presented in the 1870s to troops in India. The other is in the National Army Museum, London. The competition for which this cup was presented was recorded in service newspaper, 'The Broad Arrow': 'The Commander-in-Chief has much pleasure in publishing to the army the result of the competition in shooting in connection with His Excellency's prizes. There were in all 3123 competitors. Of these, 134 belonged to the cavalry. No artillery competed. Lord Napier is highly satisfied. This shows an increased number of competitors in the infantry and improved shooting. ... His Excellency congratulates the 63rd Regiment on having won the Commander-in-Chief's prize cup.' (The Broad Arrow, 5th April 1873, p. 444).

The cup was made by Elkington and Co. of Birmingham, the scientifically pioneering and internationally renowned art and luxury metal manufacturers. The overall design was almost certainly overseen by Auguste Adolphe Willms (1827-1899) who headed the company's design studio. The design has Willms' usual elements in the floral and foliate ornament and especially the 'grotesque' bearded face on the sides of the cup. The two panels with battle scenes from Lord Napier's Maqdala campaigns may have been executed or at least supervised by Thomas Spall (1853-1914), a master specialist in repoussé (relief) work who was in the design team at that period but may have been designed by any number of artists Elkington used.

In keeping with Elkington's adoption of new technologies, the scenes on the cup were inspired by a collection of photographs taken on the Maqdala expedition by the 10th Company Royal Engineers. There was a team of seven photographers embedded with the Company. After the campaign, albums of 78 photographs were given to officers, government officials, and public institutions and variations were published as engravings. The collection is the earliest surviving body of work by photographers sent to accompany a full-scale British military operation. Some of these photographs are in the V&A's collection (see for example Museum no. 71910) while a complete album is held by the Yale Centre for British Art.

A.A. Willms was himself also an early photographer. In the Elkington archive at the V&A is an album of photographs taken my him of animals that he photographed at London Zoo, circa 1865. There are many East Asian birds that later appeared on Elkington's cloisonné enamel designs. But more interestingly in regard to this cup, he also took images of Jumbo, the legendary elephant, who was on show after he had been acquired from the Garden des Plantes in Paris. The elephant on top of this cup may have been based on those photographs as anatomical source material.

The silver 'Maqdala Cup' or 'Napier Cup' was presented by Robert Napier (1810-90), Lord Napier (and later 1st Baron Napier of Maqdala) to the 63rd West Suffolk Regiment in January 1873 as the winners of a shooting competition among troops under his command in India. The cup's design in no way reflects its original purpose as a shooting prize. It was instead an award carefully designed to reinforce the authority and legendary status in the British Army of its Commander-in-Chief. The cup has two panels decorated in low relief depicting the British army's 'punitive' raid five years earlier on the Ethiopian Emperor Tewedros' fort at Maqdala in 1868, a violent reprisal led by Napier that secured the release of British hostages, destroyed the fort and led to the suicide of the Emperor and the looting of his treasury. The base of the cup is decorated with garlanded mortars while on the lid is a marching elephant carrying a mortar.

Triumphalist and caricaturist, the substantial silver cup embodies debates around the legacies of empire in museum collections. The cup was acquired by the V&A in 2020 not as a celebration of the British Army's actions at Maqdala but to communicate the reception in Victorian Britain of military campaigns at the height of the British Empire and to shed light on the mythologizing, through contemporary design and material culture, of military generals as heroes and military exploits as legends that fed into a growing sense of national identity in late 19th-century Britain.

The cup makes a stark and revealing counterpoint to objects in the V&A's collection that were looted from the treasury at Maqdala during the raid including the gold chalice (Museum no. M.26-2005) and crown (Museum no. M.27-2005).

M.7:1-2020