Cup of the Tucher Family

WB.101.b     about 1568 • Silver-gilt • standing cup

Under each foot are the arms of the powerful Tucher family of Nuremberg, and an inscription in memory of Leonhart Tucher (died 1568). Baron Ferdinand’s father was offered the pair in the 1830s. He bought one, which Baron Ferdinand later inherited. Alfred Rothschild inherited the other and generously gave it to Baron Ferdinand to unite the pair.

Curator's Description

Standing cup and cover; silver-gilt; embossed, etched and chased; middle zone of bowl cylindrical and embossed with three terminal figures in niches, spaces filled with grotesque figures and strapwork; upper part expands and is embossed in ten foliations with etched scrolls between; base chased in relief with fruit; chased baluster stem with three cupids' heads; two borders on foot, one chased, one etched; cover with border in relief, six finger-rings alternating with scallop-shells and lion masks; knob formed of nude female figure holding shield; inside a medallion with bust of old man; in relief beneath foot, arms and crest of Tucher of Nuremberg with helmet and mantlings; inscribed.

This object was collected by Anselm von Rothschild and bequeathed to the British Museum by Ferdinand Anselm Rothschild.

How big is it?

11.1 cm wide, 25.5 cm high, 11.1 cm deep, and it weighs 606g

Detailed Curatorial Notes

Text from Tait 1988:-

Origin: Nuremberg; 1568; mark of Christoph Lindenberger (master 1546, died 1586).

Base Inscriptions [shows the slight variation between the two]:

Cat. No. 14. Herrn Leonhart Tũchers seligen gedechtnũs. den. 13t Monatstag Martij Ao 1568.

Cat. No. 15. Herrn Leonharten Tũchers seligen gedechtnũs/ den. 13t Monatstag Martij Ao 1568.

Base Inscriptions [shows the slight variation between the two]:

Cat. No. 14. Herrn Leonhart Tũchers seligen gedechtnũs. den. 13t Monatstag Martij Ao 1568.

Cat. No. 15. Herrn Leonharten Tũchers seligen gedechtnũs/ den. 13t Monatstag Martij Ao 1568.

Marks: On each cup, there are three sets of marks (a town-mark and a maker's mark): on the foot-rim, on the bowl (in the etched mauresque decoration below the lip) and, thirdly, on the cover.

(i) Assay mark for Nuremberg, 1550-60 (R3 3758/9).

(ii) Maker's mark, a double fleur-de-lis within a shaped shield: the punch-mark of Christoph Lindenberger (R3 3878).

Marks: On each cup, there are three sets of marks (a town-mark and a maker's mark): on the foot-rim, on the bowl (in the etched mauresque decoration below the lip) and, thirdly, on the cover.

(i) Assay mark for Nuremberg, 1550-60 (R3 3758/9).

(ii) Maker's mark, a double fleur-de-lis within a shaped shield: the punch-mark of Christoph Lindenberger (R3 3878).

Provenance: Baron Anselm von Rothschild, Vienna, by 1866 (cat no. 214), by inheritance to his son Baron Ferdinand Rothschild (d. 1898). The unpublished manuscript of Baron Ferdinand Rothschild's 'Reminiscences' (most generously made available for study by Mrs James de Rothschild) provides confirmation that both cups were offered about 1830-40 to his father, Baron Anselm:

“Once a pair of beautifully chiselled cups dated 1568 were offered to my Father. The value according to the then custom went as usual by the weight and as the cups were small the price was trifling. For some reason I have never ascertained, my Father would purchase only one of the cups and persuaded his Uncle to take the other. This Uncle bequeathed the whole of his plate to my Uncle Lionel, and his cup went eventually by inheritance to my Cousin Alfred, while my Father's came into my hands. One day while deploring to my Cousin that the pair should have been divided he most generously pressed the acceptance of his cup on me, so that after a separation of more than fifty years the two have been united again.”

Only one of the two cups, therefore, entered Baron Anselm's collection, and unfortunately the contemporary photographic evidence is not wholly conclusive, but it seems certain that cat. no. 14 (with the plain disc - or 'unfinished flower' - motif on the lower zone of the bowl) was the one selected by Baron Anselm. Of course, there is no way of establishing which cover was placed on Baron Anselm's cup and which cover was on the cup that entered his uncle's collection; the latter subsequently passed to Baron Lionel, the son of Nathaniel Mayer (1777-1836), the founder of the English branch of the Rothschild family. While it was in the possession of Baron Lionel Rothschild, MP (1808-79), who lived at Tring, it was lent to the South Kensington Museum - see ‘Catalogue of the Special Loan Exhibition of Works of Art’, 1862, p. 508, no. 6150, where it was meticulously described, including a transcription of both inscriptions (on the cover and on the foot). Baron Lionel's cup was no. 15 (of the present pair), for on the underside of the foot it had the etched inscription that reads: 'Herrn Leonarten . . .', whereas Baron Anselm's cup in Vienna, it must be assumed, had the shorter form ('Leonart'). Unfortunately, the description in Schestag 1866 does not provide a transcription; it merely states that Baron Anselm's cup had 'am Fusse das Tucher'sche Wappen mit Umschrift'.

Baron Lionel's Tucher covered cup was bequeathed to his son, Baron Alfred (1842-1918), who lived in great style at Halton House, near Wendover. The precise date when he generously reunited it with its companion cup (then at Waddesdon Manor) is not known, but presumably, it was between 1880 and 1890. Because Baron Ferdinand states that they had been separated for 'more than fifty years', it can be deduced that the pair had been offered to Baron Anselm in the period 1830-40.

Commentary: The Nuremberg goldsmith Christoph Lindenberger was a very talented contemporary of Wenzel Jamnitzer, becoming a master in 1546 and dying in 1586 - only one year after Wenzel Jamnitzer. Consequently, he has tended to be overshadowed by the extraordinary achievements of this so-called 'Cellini of the North', who had come from Vienna and had been made a master in Nuremberg as early as 1534. Rosenberg lists only thirteen works by Christoph Lindenberger (including these two Tucher cups), but undoubtedly the survival of his famous tour de force, the incomparable Wheelbarrow group in the Electoral Kunstkammer of the Saxon Court in Dresden (inv. no. IV, 337), ensures that his name will forever be prominent among the goldsmiths of the mid-sixteenth century who established the fame of Nuremberg. The Wheelbarrow group (see J.L. Sponsel, ‘Das Grüne Gewölbe zu Dresden’, vol. II, Leipzig, 1928, p. 160, pl. 5; ‘The Splendor of Dresden, Five Centuries of Art Collecting’, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1978, p. 79, no. 24, with illus.; and C. Hernmarck, ‘The Art of the European Silversmith, 1430-1830’, 2 vols., German edn, Munich, 1978, fig. 184) is an amazing free-standing work of silver sculpture and, in its imagery of the devil pushing along the obese 'God Bacchus' in a wheelbarrow and in its use of rhyming inscriptions, is an unparalleled example of satirical humour in silver plate. (For a further discussion of the significance of this masterpiece by Christoph Lindenberger, see WB.131.)

In making these two covered cups, Christoph Lindenberger has adhered closely to the conventional Nuremberg type that was also being made, often for presentation purposes, in many parts of Germany during the third quarter of the sixteenth century. It is already represented in Erasmus Hornick's drawings done in Antwerp in the mid-sixteenth century (see Hayward 1976, p. 357, pl. 205), but is seen fully developed in Matthias Zündt's illustrations to his ‘Neu Kunstbuch’ or ‘Kraterographie’, published in Nuremberg in 1551, and in the numerous contemporary (but undated) sheets by Virgil Solis (1514-62). Zündt was a journeyman in Wenzel Jamnitzer's workshop at the time of the publication of his ‘Kraterographie’ and so it records, probably quite accurately, many of the basic elements of the Jamnitzer style. Two of the Zündt engraved designs for a covered cup demonstrate that, beneath the profuse surface ornament, the strictly horizontal piling up of the various elements conforms to the Renaissance principles of proportion and structure (see‘Wenzel Jamnitzer und die Nürnberger Goldschmiedekunst 1500-1700’, exh. cat., Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, 1985, p. 374, no. 376 with illus.; also for another engraving, Hayward 1976, p. 351, pl. 136). In both cases, the middle zone of the bowl is a cylindrical drum and has become the most prominent feature of the cup, being given a strong sculptural emphasis.

Even closer to the Tucher cups in many respects is the drawing attributed to Wenzel Jamnitzer (Berlin, Kunstbibliothek, inv. no. Hdz 2474, which is illustrated in ‘Wenzel Jamnitzer’ 1985, p. 339, no. 295, where it is dated “um 1545”). In particular, the cylindrical drum of the middle zone of the bowl is decorated with a very similar design centred on an almost identical 'term-in-a-niche' motif. Another closely related pen and wash drawing, also attributed to the workshop of Wenzel Jamnitzer, is preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum (see Hayward 1976, p. 350, pl. 128) and incorporates the typical mauresque designs under the lip with a loosely related version of strapwork reliefs on the cylindrical and lower zones of the bowl.

Probably one of the earliest and finest examples of this type of covered cup to have survived is the gem-set Hamilton Palace cup (now in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Lugano) that had once belonged to William Beckford (before 1844) and was sold by the Duke of Hamilton in 1973 (see Müller 1986, pp. 136-9, no. 36, col. pl. and three illus.). Although the gemstones are probably not part of the original design, some of the major features of this covered cup (H. 35 cm) correspond with the Tucher cups, especially the sculptural relief decoration (with a variant of the 'term-in-a-niche' motif) on the cylindrical drum and the etched mauresques (under the lip) of the bowl. It is the work of a Nuremberg goldsmith, Veit Moringer (master 1535, died 1569), and is attributed to the period 1555-60 (in ‘Wenzel Jamnitzer’ 1985, p. 235, no. 31). Curiously, this goldsmith left Augsburg, where he was born and where his father and brother were goldsmiths, and settled at an early stage in Nuremberg - yet another example of the close links that existed between the two major centres of the craft.

Another much-published covered cup that is almost identical to the gem-set Hamilton Palace cup, having among other things exactly the same decorated hexagonal foot and, most importantly, the identical sculptural frieze around the cylindrical drum of the bowl, is the so-called Jacob Fröhlich Nuremberg cup and cover (Pierpont Morgan Bequest, Metropolitan Museum, New York, inv. no. 17.190; see E. Kris, Zum Werke Peter Flötners und zur Geschichte der Nürnberger Goldschmiedekunst, ‘Pantheon’, IX, Munich, 1932, pp. 28-32, with illus.). However, it is not genuine. It has been officially recognised since 1982 that this New York piece is not by the Nuremberg goldsmith Hans Fröhlich (master 1555, died 1579), but is a modern deception, although it is not correct to describe it as 'an electrotype imitation' of the famous covered cup by Jacob Fröhlich belonging to the Worshipful Company of Broderers in the City of London (see Müller 1986, p. 138, note 3). The Broderers’ cup (H. 41.2 cm), which was already recorded in 1606 as a gift to the Company, is not the same; it has, for example, a beautifully pictorial cast relief running around the broad cylindrical drum depicting several biblical scenes, which are nowhere to be found on the New York version. It is true that in some details, however, the New York modern version does correspond exactly with the magnificent London example, but in several even more significant ways it is identical to the Hamilton Palace cup in Lugano. Consequently, the New York pastiche appears to be the result of combining elements from both the London and the Lugano cups -a rather clever form of deception that probably post-dates the 1862 Special Loan Exhibition at the South Kensington Museum, to which both were lent (nos 5,405 and 6,189) and, therefore, seen together for the first time. The New York version has a cover that borrows heavily from the piece in the Broderers’ Company - indeed, the latter is both exceptionally rare and interesting, for it is set with three roundels of enamelled birds, between which is repeated three times a relief of Hope seated in a landscape, based on a model by Peter Flötner (see ‘Catalogue of Works of Art belonging to the Livery Companies of London’, 1926, no. 511; Kris 1932, p. 28, for excellent detail illus. of the cover; also Hayward 1976, p. 384, pl. 483, where the reputed sixteenth-century origin of the New York pastiche is defended - not questioned - and where it is pointed out that “such repetition does not accord with the modern conception of 16th-century practice, but was not exceptional; Hans Petzoldt did the same”.)

On the Tucher cups the design of the relief decorating the cylindrical drum of each bowl can be compared with a number of very similar plaquettes (in lead, bronze or silver) that were included in Dr Weber's two-volume survey (see I. Weber, ‘Deutsche, Niederländische und Französische Renaissanceplaketten 1500-1650’, Munich, 1975, p. 154, nos 247-8, pl. 70; pp. 155-6, nos 253-6, pl. 72). None of these are identical in detail, but all have the same general character and were attributed to the workshop of Wenzel Jamnitzer in the decades following the mid-sixteenth century. However, two plaquettes with almost identical features - albeit not identically arranged - were published in Dr Weber's vast corpus as 'Nordwestdeutschland (?)' and again were dated to the third quarter of the sixteenth century (see Weber 1975, p. 266, nos 570-1, pl .159, where no. 571 has been illustrated upside-down). These two plaquettes (known from a lead example in the Historisches Museum, Basle, and from the bronze example in Frankfurt's Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, respectively) contain most of the elements that occur on Christoph Lindenberger's silver reliefs on the bowls of the Tucher cups. There is on Weber no. 570 the identical 'term-in-a-niche' motif - albeit embellished with more fussy detail - and, on Weber no. 571, the identical double-tier arrangement on either side inhabited by two satyr-like grotesques in spiralling foliage (above) and two sphinx-like mermaids gazing upwards (below). Both plaquettes (H. 4.4 x 9.4 cm and H. 3.7 x 9.3 cm, respectively) incorporate at each end of the design a blank roundel, which would - as in the case of the Tucher cups - be filled with a boss (or disc) of the goldsmith's choice, perhaps cast with a mauresque design, similar to those published as from the “workshop of Wenzel Jamnitzer in the mid-sixteenth century” (see Weber 1975, pp. 155-6, nos 253-6, pl. 72). In the light of Christoph Lindenberger's use of reliefs so similar in design, these two plaquettes (Weber 1975, nos 570-1) may be reattributed to Nuremberg in the period 1560-70.

Christoph Lindenberger's reliefs, like many of his etched decorative designs on the Tucher cups dated 1568, resemble to greater or lesser extent the engraved prints produced in the workshop of Virgil Solis or by his imitators (see Ilse O'Dell-Franke, ‘Kupferstiche und Radierungen aus der Werkstatt des Virgil Solis’, Wiesbaden, 1977, nos 187-94, pl. 119, and nos m109-14, pl. 153). There can be little doubt that this repertoire of mauresque patterns and Renaissance ornament was widely circulated, especially throughout the workshops of the leading goldsmiths of Nuremberg, where new versions could be created by cleverly combining elements borrowed from a number of prints.

The Tucher family, four years earlier, must have commissioned Wenzel Jamnitzer to make a late Gothic-style double-cup (Doppelscheuer) on the occasion of the marriage of Leonhart (Linhard) Tucher's fourth son, Herdegen IV, to Katharina Pfinzing in 1564, for it has survived with an enamelled roundel set under the foot of each cup bearing the coat-of-arms of the two families and the inscription: “30 MAIVS” and “1564” (see Grote 1961, fig. 89; ‘Wenzel Jamnitzer’, 1985, p. 229, no. 23; also Hayward 1976, p. 378, pl. 425, where it is pointed out that “unlike most Gothic Revival cups of the second half of the sixteenth century, no Renaissance detail is introduced, even in the engraved borders of the lips.”) That Wenzel Jamnitzer in 1564 should make a wholly Gothic Doppelscheuer, indistinguishable from those being made in the late fifteenth century in the days of the young Dürer, may be due to the extreme conservative tastes of such Nuremberg 'patrician' patrons. Certainly, the Tucher family were unlikely to have erred in that direction; on this occasion their commission may have been specifically for a replica of - or even a pair to - an existing fifteenth-century Doppelscheuer in the family's possession. Nevertheless, it is revealing that as late as 1564 the late Gothic form was the preferred choice of a rich family who could afford to commission the best and have it executed in the latest Italian Renaissance fashion. In the Middle Ages the Tucher family was one of the twenty 'old' families whose members could be elected - along with those of seven 'new' families - to the Lesser Council and, hence, to the politically more important Privy Council of Nuremberg. In 1440 this powerful oligarchy was widened to include a further fifteen families, but the Tuchers remained among the most influential in the city. The earliest German example of double-entry book-keeping is said to be a balance sheet for 1484 kept by the Nuremberg merchant Langhans Tucher, and the seal of Anton Tucher on a document of 1501 (in the Staatsarchiv, Nuremberg) demonstrates conclusively that the armorial bearings of the family in everyday use then were the same as those on the 1568 Tucher cups by Christoph Lindenberger. Indeed, those two armorial roundels (in the bases) correspond almost exactly with the oval silver medallion set in the 1592 covers of the famous Tucher Geschlechterbuch, which has survived in the family (Nuremberg, Tucherschlösschen - now administered by the Historisches Museum der Stadt; see Hernmarck 1978, fig. 827 for a detail of this armorial medallion; also ‘Wenzel Jamnitzer’ 1985, pp. 257-8, no. 80). The family commissioned the Nuremberg goldsmith Hans Kellner (master 1582, died 1605) to make the beautiful silver Renaissance mounts for this historic family 'chronicle' and in addition bronze and lead versions are recorded (see K. Pechstein, ‘Bronzen und Plaketten’, Berlin, 1968, nos 217-20; Weber 1975, no. 302, pl. 87) using designs by Jost Amman for the emblematical figures. The role of Leonhart Tucher (1487-1568) in the life of the city and in the story of the Tucher family is touched on in Ludwig Grote's 1961 monograph (see Bibliography) devoted to the Tucher family. It provides a family tree, a concise account of their history, their town house in Nuremberg and the historic items associated with individual members as well as the famous Tucherbuch, with its many illuminations and its beautiful Renaissance silver mounts of 1592 by Hans Kellner. Well illustrated, this 1961 publication offers a full bibliography and an introduction to the background, both social and economic, of these remarkable Renaissance-style Tucher cups in the Waddesdon Bequest. Further biographical details illuminating Leonhart Tucher's long life were provided in 1962 by Wilhelm Schwemmer (see Bibliography).

The Tucher family's appreciation of the newest Italian and French Renaissance tastes is again vividly demonstrated in the Tucherschlösschen, Nuremberg, by their acquisition of Limoges painted enamels - four tazze, two tall covered cups and, in particular, a splendid ewer and basin. Indeed, the Tucher family coat-of-arms is incorporated into the painted enamel decoration on the four tazze and on the ewer; the basin also bears the enamelled date 1562, but the central raised boss - so often used for an armorial device - is now empty. However, the ewer is mounted in Nuremberg gilded silver bearing the mark of Wenzel Jamnitzer and, significantly, both the silver-gilt handle and the silver-gilt spout are executed in the most advanced Mannerist sculptural forms (see Grote 1961, col. pl. II; ‘Wenzel Jamnitzer’ 1985, p. 228, no. 22, where it is stated that the Limoges 'Tucher Service' is the work of both “Paul [sic] Reymond and Leonard Limosin”; also P. Verdier, ‘Catalogue of the Painted Enamels of the Renaissance in the Walters Art Gallery’, Baltimore, 1967, pp. 240 and 247, figs 24-5, for a general view of the Tucher service, which is there attributed entirely to “Pierre Reymond ca. 1558” and, furthermore, the date on the basin is stated to be 1558 - not 1562). Fortunately, a second Limoges painted enamel ewer with very similar Wenzel Jamnitzer silver-gilt mounts, especially the spout and handle, has survived in the Schatzkammer of the Residenz in Munich (see H. Brunner, ‘Schatzkammer der Residenz München’, 3rd edn of the Catalogue, Munich, 1970, nos 568-9; also ‘Wenzel Jamnitzer’ 1985, col. pl. 3). This second ewer is signed P.R. (for Pierre Reymond) and is now accompanied by a Limoges painted enamel dish (DIAM. 42 cm), which does not have a central raised boss like the one in the Tucher service. It was, therefore, not made as a basin en suite with the ewer. Significantly the dish, with its scene of the Israelites and the Manna from Heaven, is signed: ‘Leonard Limosin F’, and it is very apparent that the ewer and the dish did not originally belong together. Although they both came to the Munich Residenz in 1802 from the Treasury of the Palatinate, they are a later 'marriage' and, no doubt, were the remains of a larger collection; their chance survival together has, perhaps, led to the Limoges Tucher service being similarly attributed to these two very different enamellers, whose styles are so distinct and recognisable.

The Limoges Tucher service was stated in Verdier 1967, p. 247, to have been made by Pierre Reymond for Leonhart (or Linhard) I Tucher (1487-1568), and a document of 1561 quoted in Schwemmer 1962, p. 31, confirms it. Similarly, the silver-gilt chalice in the church of St Sebald in Nuremberg, which bears the engraved date 1522 and the Tucher coat-of-arms (on the underside of the foot), has been published as a piece of plate made for the same Leonhart Tucher on the occasion of his second marriage, on 7 October 1522, to Katherina Nützel, who bore him fifteen children before she departed this life in 1550 (see H. Kohlhaussen, ‘Nürnberger Goldschmiedekunst des Mittelalters und der Dürerzeit 1240-1540’, Berlin, 1968, p. 195, no. 287). Less convincingly, a Nuremberg cup in the Schroder Collection in London, which is without a maker's mark and is presumed to be half of a Doppelscheuer, bears the engraved inscription: 'Lienhart Tucher 12' - thought to be a reference to the first marriage in 1512 of the same Leonhart Tucher of Nuremberg to Magdalena Stromer (see T. B. Schroder, ‘The Art of the European Goldsmith: Silver from the Schroder Collection’, New York, 1983, pp. 38-40, no. 5; also H. Kohlhaussen, 1968, pp. 321-2, no. 357A, where it is pointed out that the cup also bears, firstly, the dated initials 'St Ch 1657' and appropriate armorial decoration that must refer to the marriage in 1657 between Stephen IV Tucher and Clara Imhoff, and, secondly, another engraved inscription that refers to the marriage in 1704 between Hans Paul Tucher and Maria Magdelena Imhoff. Unfortunately, the history of this Schroder cup with its triple references to the Tuchers' marriages has only been traced back to a London auction sale in 1866 (see Christie's, 8 May 1866, lot 80, property of G. H. Morland, Esq.) and to 1862 when Mr Morland lent the cup to the South Kensington Museum Special Loan Exhibition (no. 1060). It is curious that Leonhart Tucher's second and more important marriage in 1522 is omitted.

However, there is one silver object bearing an inscription incorporating the name LEONH. TVCHER, about which there need be no misgivings; it is the medal of 1538 (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg), commemorating the laying of the cornerstone of the improved fortifications around the Castle of Nuremberg (see ‘Wenzel Jamnitzer’ 1985, p. 447, no. 626). The model for the obverse is by Peter Flötner, and the design for the reverse by Johann Neudörfer has a seventeen-line Latin inscription referring to the castle fortifications in the time of the Emperor Charles V, his brother Ferdinand I, Christoph Tetzel, Leonhart Tucher and Sebald Pfinzing. This medal, therefore, offers further proof of the powerful position held by Leonhart Tucher in the affairs of Nuremberg, when the city commissioned Antonio di Vazuni to improve the defences between 1538 and 1545. One of the medals would have been placed in the cornerstone during the ceremony, and a limited number of copies in precious metal would have been presented to the public-spirited patrons of the project - no doubt a major contribution towards the costs had come from Leonhart Tucher. He died thirty years later at the age of eighty-one, greatly respected.

That his Christian name, Leonhart(en), is not spelt in exactly the same form in the two inscriptions under the Tucher cups in the Waddesdon Bequest is not in the least surprising, since both forms were in common use at that time. Indeed, this minor variation, together with several other very slight differences in the lettering, make both inscriptions the more credible; each has an individual character, as one might expect when there is no mechanical method of reproduction involved. The fashion for a prominent member of a distinguished 'old' family to bequeath under the terms of his or her will a specific sum of money to certain younger members of the family (particularly sons and daughters) for the express purpose of buying a piece of silver plate bearing an inscription commemorating the deceased is well documented in seventeenth-century England (see Hugh Tait, The Advent of the Two-handled Cup: The Croft Cups, ‘The Proceedings of the Society of Silver Collectors’, London, 1982, II, no. 12, pp. 202-10, figs 328-40). There the wills of Mary Leigh and Anne Archer are quoted in extenso because of their many references to silver plate and to specific bequests to the children of £30 each to “buy them strong pieces of plate, all of one fashion, with the inscription, The Legacy of . . .” and because two of those inscribed covered cups (the so-called Croft cups) have fortunately survived and are now preserved in the British Museum (reg. no. 1973,0103.1-2). Significantly, the two Croft cups seem at first glance to be identical but, as has been shown in 1982, they differ in minor details, including the commemorative inscriptions. Fortunately, the two Leonhart Tucher cups have similarly survived and, because of Baron Alfred Rothschild's generous response to his cousin at Waddesdon Manor, they are now together in perpetuity.

Bibliography

  • ‘Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Works of Art of the Medieval, Renaissance, and more recent periods, On Loan At The South Kensington Museum, June 1862’, London, rev. edn 1863 (ed. J.C. Robinson), p. 508, no. 6150 (describes one of the two Tucher cups - cat. no. 15)
  • Franz Schestag, ‘katalog der Kuntsammlung des Freiherrn Anselm von Rothschild in Wein’ Vienna, 1866, no. 214 (records and illustrates cat. no. 14, the other one of the two cups)
  • Charles Hercules Read, ‘The Waddesdon Bequest: Catalogue of the Works of Art bequeathed to the British Museum by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, M.P., 1898’, London, 1902, no. 101
  • Marc Rosenberg, ‘Der Goldschmiede Merkzeichen’. 3rd edn, Frankfurt, vol. III, 1925, p. 78, R3 3878 (c)-(d O.M. Dalton, ‘The Waddesdon Bequest’, 2nd edn (rev), British Museum, London, 1927, no. 101
  • Ludwig Grote, ‘Die Tucher: Bildnis einer Patrizierfamilie’, Munich, 1961, pp. 36-7, figs 86-8
  • Wilhelm Schwemmer, Das Mäzenatentum der Nürnberger Patrizierfamilie Tucher vom 14-18. Jahrhundert, ‘Milteilungen des Vereins fiir Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg’, Nuremberg, 1962, pp. 30-2
  • J. F. Hayward, ‘Virtuoso Goldsmiths and the Triumphs of Mannerism 1540-1620’, Sotheby Parke Bernet Publications, London, 1976, p. 379, pl. 436
  • Hugh Tait, ‘The Waddesdon Bequest: The Legacy of Baron Ferdinand Rothschild to the British Museum’, London, 1981, p. 71, fig. 48
  • Hannelore Müller, ‘European Silver: The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection’, Sotheby’s Publications, London, 1986, p. 138, note 3
  • Hugh Tait, 'Catalogue of the Waddesdon Bequest in the British Museum, II : The Silver Plate', British Museum, London, 1988, pl.IV, no. 14, figs. 102-108
  • Dora Thornton, 'A Rothschild Renaissance: Treasures from the Waddesdon Bequest', British Museum, London, 2015, pp.24-25.

    The Tucher cup which was given by Alfred de Rothschild to Ferdinand to go with his other Tucher cup was still with Alfred in 1884, it appears as no. 160 in his 'A Description of Works of Art forming the Collection of Alfred de Rothschild', London 1884 by Charles Davis, 2 vols in Rothschild Archive.

  • References

    1. Read 1902: Read, Charles Hercules, The Waddesdon Bequest. Catalogue of the Works of Art Bequeathed to the British Museum by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, M.P., 1898, London, BMP, 1902
    2. Dalton 1927: Dalton, Ormonde Maddock, The Waddesdon Bequest : jewels, plate, and other works of art bequeathed by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild., London, BMP, 1927
    3. Tait 1988: Tait, Hugh, Catalogue of the Waddesdon Bequest in the British Museum; II The Silver Plate, London, BMP, 1988

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