Vessel with a hexalobate mouth, S-shaped handles in the form of branches, a round foot and a very low baluster stem. The handles are joined to the bowl by six mounts with a central band enamelled in black stripes. The knop has a gold mount with embedded black enamel stripes and drops of translucent green imitating emeralds. The mount on the foot has been missing since at least 1746. The decoration of the body follows the models characteristic of the Milanese school. The lower part of the bowl is articulated by concave gadroons with a double cincture separating the upper area, carved with floral sprays and seeds in alternate gadroons. With thin sides cut with considerable skill, it is made of fairly clean rock crystal. The designs correspond to the fashion of alternating engraved and unadorned surfaces, in an aesthetic that gradually abandoned the profuse decoration and horror vacui typical of 16th century pieces.

This is a typical product of the Milan workshops of the second half of the 17th century, and it may have been one of the vessels that served as models for the workshop of Giovanni Battista Metellino, who copied them with less technical ability, since there are points in common with the pieces attributed to that workshop, especially the design of the handles. Even so, the coarser production of that minor workshop cannot be compared with the execution of this piece. The mount on the stem bears a decorative pattern related to the one habitually employed in the Sarachi workshop, with its classic spiral patterns of black enamel embedded in tooled gold. Vessels MR 305 and MR 310 at the Louvre have similar handles in the form of question marks, with beaded profiles and voluted finials. Another, attributed to Metellino’s workshop, was acquired by Louis XIV between 1701 and 1713. Currently preservd at the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, inv. 7.53, it is gadrooned with double arrises and has a similar design on the handles. The Dauphin’s Treasure contains a similar but better executed piece, O87, attributed to the Sarachi workshop.

Original state: Juan Laurent y Minier, “Tasse, en cristal de roche taillé et gravé, montures d’or et émaux, XVIe siècle, règne de Henri III”, c. 1879. Museo del Prado, HF0835/44 (L. Arbeteta, in press).