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Turban Snail Shell Cup
second half 17th century
Cornelis Bellekin
Cornelis van Bellekin engraved the turban snail shell that forms the cup in the late seventeenth century. Around 1725, Elector Augustus the Strong's court jeweler, Johann Heinrich Köhler, set the shell in this intricate mount for display in Dresden's new treasury, the Grünes Gewölbe, alongside a matching example. The mount design does not relate to the engravings (a landscape with cavorting putti) but rather to the snail's marine home; the shaft is a double fish-tailed Triton. |