Peter Wiber (d.1641) was one of the leading silversmiths in Nuremberg at a time when the metalworkers of that city dominated fashionable taste in Europe. His work is best known through surviving covered cups, such as this, which would have been used as grand display pieces, as well as for formal toasting. The cast figure of St Christopher, carrying the infant Christ over a raging torrent, perhaps refers to the emblem the cup’s original owners, who were more likely to have been a guild, society or institution than a private individual.A vogue for gothic design swept through Europe during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and the design of this cup, with its exaggerated lobes and delicate openwork, is closely modelled on late medieval styles. |
