Bowl

The underside of this small drinking bowl is decorated with a naturalistic central rosette from which springs an abundance of leaves and petals set against a delicately stippled background. Acanthus leaves with windblown, side-swept tips alternate with Indian lotus (nymphaea nelumbo) petals. A band of twisted ribbon highlighted with gilding between beaded borders edges the floral zone. The inside of the bowl is plain.

Silver cups like this would have been expensive status items. Beyond the value of the silver itself, the expense of this bowl would have come from the labor involved in its creation. The silversmith first cast the vessel, then smoothed the turned-out rim with its rounded molding on a lathe, and finally enhanced the decoration with additional tooling and gilding.