Beaker, silver, gilded on interior, spun, Switzerland (Luzern), mark of Kaspar Melchior Bossard, ca. 1830

Cylindrical beaker, with spreading lip, circular foot, and a moulded band round the body. Engraved above with a stag hunt, fishing and hay making with the zodiac sign for Leo. The foot is cast and chased with a boar hunt. Not raised (technique after 1820).

One of a pair. Concentric rings around the interior of this mug indicate that its body has been spun into shape. Spinning underwent a revival from about 1820 when more efficient steam-powered lathes came into widespread use. Thomas Nicholson, a Sheffield plate maker wrote in 1850, 'Much of late years is accomplished by turning with a burnish on pieces of wood formed for the purpose, some forty years ago never contemplated. I remember being laughed at for such an attempt, but today it has become an important advantage.'
Bossard, a firm founded by Kaspar Melchior Bossard in 1775, specialized in historicist pieces. This cup is an accurate copy of a mid-16th century monatsbecher (a mug from a set made to stack inside one another) and is decorated with scenes after the Nurnberg artist, Jost Amman, illustrating signs of the zodiac. The harvest depicted on this example represents Virgo.

M.202-1923