Existing comment:
Turban Snail Cup and Cover
cup ca. 1600, stand before 1753
Stand by Johann Joachim Busch
The abundance of ornament worked into the silver mounts of this cup and cover reflects the Mannerist style popular around 1600. The artist has used the shell's spiral to suggest the coiled body of a basilisk, a reptilian monster believed to kill merely by looking at or breathing on its prey. In 1752, Duke Christian Ludwig II of Mecklenburg commissioned court sculptor Johann Joachim Busch to elevate the heirloom on a fashionable stand that reflects the rococo taste for curving lines. |