Small cup

A small cup from the museum collection, made of finely finished silver; a product from Kraków from the beginning of the 20th century. The small cup, with the body widening at the top, with its edge turned out, transforming into a short stem at the bottom, resting on a low, round, profiled base. The cup itself is decorated with an etched ornament made up of a sharply terminated medallion, the contours of which are made up of a clear skewed line with the initials RB encompassed on the upper and lower sides with a triple bow. From the lower bow there are three elongated leaves of varius lengths, with the longest encompassing the medallion on both sides. On the upper and lower sides, the cup is additionally decorated with a wavy line. The decoration is similar to folk embroidery. At the top of the cup, below the cast, are gilder’s marks. It is usually a richly decorative vessel for drinking wine, in the form of a cup resting atop a stem, foot or plinth. Cups proper have various shapes, and beside silver and gold, they are made of horns, snail shells (the nautilus), coconut shells, while their shape and colour are retained. The chalice is a form of a cup. A very large and decorative cup, adorning the table, and used to raise important toasts, was called the roztruchan. Cups to raise toasts are vivat cups or are otherwise named kolejne [subsequent] because they are meant to be passed on when the toast is raised. Known are also the large Willkomm cup, the double cup, the kusztyk goblet without a base, and the horn-shaped rhyton. Cup size varied from smaller, holding a quarter to half a litre, to larger ones, of one to four litres.