Royal Gold Cup
The Royal Gold Cup or Saint Agnes Cup is a solid gold covered cup lavishly decorated with enamel and pearls. It was made for the French royal family at the end of the 14th century. It later belonged to several English monarchs before spending nearly 300 years in Spain. It has been in the British Museum since 1892, where it is normally on display in Room 40.
About Royal Gold Cup in brief
The Royal Gold Cup or Saint Agnes Cup is a solid gold covered cup lavishly decorated with enamel and pearls. It was made for the French royal family at the end of the 14th century, and later belonged to several English monarchs before spending nearly 300 years in Spain. It has been in the British Museum since 1892, where it is normally on display in Room 40. The cup is made of solid gold, stands 23. 6 cm high with a diameter of 17. 8 cm at its widest point, and weighs 1. 935 kg. The stem of the cup has twice been extended by the addition of cylindrical bands, so that it was originally much shorter. The original decorated knop or finial on the cover has been lost, and a moulding decorated with 36 pearls has been removed from the outer edge of the cover. The lower of the two added bands contains enamel Tudor roses on a diapered pointillé background; this was apparently added under Henry VIII. The upper band has an engraved inscription filled in with black enamel, with a barrier of laurel branches in green to mark off the start of the inscription from its beginning. The said hanap rests on a stand of gold in the form of a tripod, and in the middle of the tripod is represented Our Lady in a sun in a clear red, and the three feet of the wing are formed by three dragons on a ground of clear red.
The three feet are represented by Our Lady on a three-anap and on a cover on a dragon. The finial of the said cover garnished with four sapphires, three balas rubies and fifteen pearls, and it weighs 9 marcs 3 ounces of gold. And the said hansap rests and the cresting of the foot is garnished with 26 pearls,. and the crown around the cover with 36 Pearls. There is no firm evidence as to the date and circumstances of the creation of the Cup. It is first clearly documented in an inventory from 1391 of the valuables belonging to Charles VI of France, surviving in two copies in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The young king had been forced to remove his uncle John Berry, the Duke of Berry, from governorships after the latter’s rapacious rapacious conduct led to unrest. He commissioned the Holy Reliquary, and also commissioned the famous International Gothic illuminated manuscript, Holy Thorniquary. He is still the best known for commissioning the Très Riches Heures du Duches du Trèvès du Duc de Berry, now in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, London. He was also the most famous and extravagant collector and commissioner of his day, as well as a collector of art of the day. He died aged 91 in the year 91, and his son Charles VI became the most powerful figure in the kingdom.
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This page is based on the article Royal Gold Cup published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 31, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
