Jan Jacobsz. van Royesteyn
Dutch, about 1549-1604

This remarkable display cup, its bowl formed by a nautilus shell, appropriately features a nautical theme. A warrior battles a fierce sea monster, while a dolphin-riding satyr holds up the shell.

In Europe beginning in the 1500s, princes, aristocrats, and wealthy merchants assembled collections representing a “theater of the universe”: the wonders of nature (naturalia) and the wonders of human creativity (artificialia). Such collections, called a “cabinet of curiosities” or kunstkamer (“art room”), often included European paintings and art objects; insects and shells; and exotic art and artifacts from Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The size alone of a nautilus shell marked it for admiration, as did its exotic origins (the East Indies). But when transformed by the skill of the goldsmith into a fanciful goblet, such a curiosity became doubly prized, combining the best aspects of the art of both nature and humankind to represent “God’s natural order.”

Nautilus shell with gilded silver mounts, 1596
Purchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott, 1973.53