Columbine cup
A Nuremberg cup shaped like a columbine flower – the masterpiece test for the city’s goldsmiths.
From 1572 a journeyman goldsmith in Nuremberg had to make a columbine cup to become a master. The cups thus show both skill and the rules of the guild. Examples are in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Materials: Silver gilt
Manufacture: Raised in bulging petals, chased and gilded; the stem cast.
Bowl and lid shaped like the flower with its bulging petals.
Nuremberg’s town mark, an N, and the maker’s mark.