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A coconut cup is a showy form of cup, mostly made and used in Western Europe in the late Middle Ages, and especially during the Renaissance, with something of a revival in Georgian Britain. They used a coconut shell as the bowl of the cup, and were mounted, typically in silver or silver-gilt, as a standing cup with a stem and foot, and usually a cover, which often included part of the shell. These metal parts were often very elaborately decorated, and the shell carved in relief.
Like the nautilus shell cup and ostrich egg cups, both popular in the same period, they reflect the curiosity aroused by the arrival during the Age of Discovery of exotic new things. Albrecht Dürer bought several coconuts on his visit to Antwerp in 1520; at this time they were probably carried from Africa on Portuguese ships.[1]
As well as merely being cleaned of fibres and polished, which all coconuts used as cups were, coconut shell can be carved in relief and many examples, especially from the late 16th century and the German-speaking world, are elaborately carved with crowded scenes, often either Biblical or military. Other mounted shells were used to form the body of animals such as wild boars in other fanciful objects. Coconuts were also referred to as the "Indian nut" or "nut of the sea".[2]
As the Early Modern period went on, and intercontinental trade became common, coconuts became much cheaper, and were now an economical alternative to a silver cup bowl, with just the mounts in silver.
Coconut cups were known in the ancient world, although no examples have survived. The earliest reference to a coconut cup in England is in a will of 1254.[3]
They were especially made in the German-speaking world, where they continued to be made well into the Baroque 17th century. Some appear among other luxurious objects in pronkstillevens ("ostentatious still-lifes") in Dutch Golden Age paintings, from about the 1640s onwards.[4]
Coconuts presumably became much more easily available in England in the 18th century, and there are many cups, that are typically a good deal simpler, on a short stem and without much carving; very often the shell is just polished. By this stage a shell was cheaper than a bowl made of silver, which has contributed to a higher survival rate for coconut cups than those in precious metal, as they had a lower recycling value, and were less likely to be melted down.[5]
A Georgian example in the National Museum of Scotland has a wooden stem and foot, the silver restricted to bands around the rim and bowl. It is inscribed "The prize of butts at Kilwinning made and sett out by Robert Fullarton of Bartanholme. Esqr. For the year 1746", a relatively economical sports trophy for a local shooting contest in Ayrshire, Scotland.[6] They continued to be made in the 19th century,[7] and into the 20th, with an extravagant art nouveau example of 1915 by the German metal artist Ernst Riegel that is now in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, Germany.[8]
Coconut cups with the nut as the body of an owl, and the head removable for drinking were also sometimes given as prizes for Continental shooting contests (with a crossbow in early ones), as owls were in these released to get other birds to rise up and mob them, and be shot.[9] Nuts also made the torsos of various other animals, mostly boars, to which heads and feet were added; animal-shaped cups were mostly a Germanic style.[10]
The belief had developed that the shells had medicinal, even magical, properties, which seems to have contributed to their lasting popularity.[11] They were one of a number of materials believed to detect or make safe poisoned wine.[12] Rather vague claims for their benefits to health continued to be made in the 17th century, for example by Nicolas de Blégny, one of Louis XIV's physicians, in his court-approved book of 1689, The Best Use of Tea, Coffee and Chocolate in the Maintenance of Good Health and the Cure of Disease. He promoted the drinking of all three of the recently-introduced hot drinks for a wide range of health conditions, saying that coconut cups were the best type, better than porcelain.[13]
The coco chocolatero is a mainly South American version, somewhat less expensive, mostly used for drinking chocolate.[14]
There are traditional uses of the coconut shell cup in areas where the tree grows naturally. Modern Western examples, normally without stems or feet, are associated with "long" cocktails, and are often ceramic imitations of the nut form.
"Travelling cup", silver-gilt, c. 1503, probably Italian
Coconut Cup with Scenes from the Life of David, 1577-1578, England or Netherlands, silver gilt, Art Institute of Chicago
Cornelis de Bye, Coconut Cup with Old Testament Scenes, before 1598
Cup with Scenes from the Story of Samson, Hans Peter Muller, Germany, c. 1600, silver-gilt, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard
Grotesque wild boar cup, Caspar Beutmuller the Elder, Nuremberg, 1603-1609, silver-gilt and cold paint, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Cup carved with Brazilian scenes, c. 1656, Neues Grünes Gewölbe, Dresden
17th-century tankard with hinged lid, and 3 tropical scenes. Carving probably Dutch, the silver mounts probably English
Heinrich Mannlich, Augsburg, 1688, coconut, silver-gilt, Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart
Cup with pewter mounts, New Zealand, c. 1849
Coco chocolatero, probably Mexico, with brass? mounts
Ernst Riegel, Cologne, 1915, coconut, silver, enamel, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg
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