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Lot Essay
DESIGN
In Henry VI, Part II, Shakespeare writes a colorful threat for the rebel Jack Cade as he draws his sword on his enemy, Alexander Iden: ‘Ah villain… I’ll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow a sword like a great pin, ere thou and I part’ (act IV, scene 10). Cade’s invocation of the ostrich draws upon the ancient myth of the of the giant bird’s supposed unassailable digestive system. Despite its slight frame, the bird was believed to be capable of digesting all manner of materials, including iron and other metals. While some natural historians began to question this belief in the later seventeenth century, the image of the iron-eating ostrich endured, shaping it into a lasting symbol of the iron industry, and imbuing it with connotations of strength and moral fortitude.
OSTRICH
Ostrich eggs were long considered exotic organic marvels, being prized in Renaissance Kunstkammer alongside other precious natural specimens including nautilus and turbo shells. These natural wonders were often fitted with adornments by Europe’s finest artisans, who crafted mounts for them in precious metals, the most exquisite being adorned with stones and enamelwork. In this way, these curiosities would be reframed as objects resembling sculpture, or transformed into opulent vessels for drinking and decanting. A number of rare and magnificent ostrich-form vessels survive. One example, a Nuremburg ewer, circa 1630, formerly in the collection of John Pierpont Morgan and today preserved in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford (obj. no. 1917.272), is by Hans I Clauss, the same maker as the Zilkha Collection’s extraordinary nautilus shell cup. Like the present cup and cover, the ewer in the Wadsworth is formed as an ostrich discovered in the act of eating iron, standing on a naturalistic mound base with a horseshoe in its beak. Unlike the Zilkha cup and cover, the bird’s abdomen is formed of an impressive natural egg. A silver-bodied figure of an ostrich similar to the present lot, also modeled with a horseshoe in its beak, is in the Wallace Collection, London (inv. no. W102). The Wallace example is marked for Augsburg silversmith Elias Zorer, circa 1625, and displays an ovoid torso much like the Zilkha cup, although its body is chased with feathers and flaunts a less articulated and supple tail. A smaller silver-gilt figure of an ostrich without a horseshoe was sold Christie’s, London, 5 July 2000, lot 44, as part of the collection of Sir Harold Wernher (1893-1973).
ANDREAS WICKERT
Renowned Augsburg goldsmith, Andreas Wickert (1600-1661) became a Master around 1629 and was a member of the Great Council from 1657-1661. His oeuvre in precious metal reveals a remarkable talent for sculpture, as demonstrated by the naturalistic detail and lifelike dynamism of the present ostrich cup. His marks also appear on a magnificent parcel-gilt ‘display’ dish, or Schauplatte, chased with the Abduction of Prosperpina, and a wonderfully sculptural ewer in the form of Nessus and Dejanira, both in the collection of the Kremlin Museum, Moscow. Similarly, a figural group of Nessus and Dejanira by Wickert, circa 1630-1635, was sold Christie’s, Paris, 23 February 2009, lot 117. Most recently, a parcel-gilt figural candlestick depicting Venus and Cupid by Wickert was sold Christie’s, Paris, 14 June 2024, lot 146.
The rare enameled and jeweled gold neck-mount is presumably the work of a specialized jeweler working with Wickert on this commission. The work is typical of jewelry of this period and is somewhat similar to some of the designs to be found, a decade or so later, in Livre des Ouvrages d’Orfèvrerie fait par Gilles Légaŕe, Orfèvre du Roi.
PROVENANCE
The engraved coat-of-arms is that of Johann Joseph Koffler (1708-1767), who served as Münz-und Berg-Administrator (Master of the Mint and Mining) for the Austrian province of Steiermark (Styria). A ‘faithful commissioner’ of Empress Maria Theresa, Koffler urged the modernization of mining in the inner Austrian regions. He employed novel and efficient methods to convert iron, requiring less ore and fuel than traditional refining processes. On 19 August 1752, the civic administrator was ennobled as Edler von Kofflern, and thus received this grant of arms. It was likely around this time that Koffler acquired the present ostrich cup, upon which he had his arms engraved. A portrait of Koffler in the Stadtmuseum, Eisenerz, depicts the noble miner in a coat bordered in rich brocades, proudly displaying his coat-of-arms in the foreground.
Presumably it was Koffler, or one of his heirs, who presented the ostrich cup to the town of Leoben, situated about thirty miles north-west of Graz, the capital of the state of Styria. The association of the ostrich with the iron trade would have made this cup a fitting gift to Leoben, an ancient city with deep roots in the mining industry, and where as early as 1298, the ostrich had appeared in a wax seal representing the town. Although the city arms have evolved over the years, the bird still remains its emblem, its long connection with iron being represented by horseshoes held both in its beak in the claw of one raised leg.
A painting by Hungarian-born artist Joseph Ginovsky (1800-1857) depicts the ostrich cup with an unknown Leoben town official. Dressed in elaborate seventeenth-century costume, the official raises the lower half of the cup as if to drink from it. The upper portion, formed as the ostrich’s head and neck, rests upright on a table nearby. The painting is inscribed in the upper right corner F.E.H. unser wu(..)rdiger Vorsteher lebe hoch’ and ‘50 Dienstjahre 1841 (‘F.E.H. long live our dignified principal and 50 years of duty, 1841’) and was catalogued and photographed as in the collection of the Museum der Stadt, Leoben, but is now presumed to be lost. The artist, whose name is variously spelled Ginyocksy, Ginvszky and Ginowsky, was a pupil of the Wiener Akadamie and is recorded as working in Vienna from 1833.
In 1884⁄85, the ostrich cup was sold by the Leoben town council to illustrious art collector Nathaniel von Rothschild (1836-1905) for 12,000 gulden. It then descended to his brother Albert von Rothschild (1884-1911), and thence to Albert’s son, Alphonse von Rothschild (1878-1942). In 1938 it was confiscated by Nazi authorities. In 1947, Austrian authorities demanded a group of Rothschild objects, including the present lot, as a “donation” in exchange for granting export permits for the larger Clarice Rothschild collection still in Vienna. By this means the present lot entered the collection of the Landesmuseum-Joanneum (currently the Universalmuseum Joanneum) in Graz. The ostrich cup was restituted to the Rothschild family in 2000 and subsequently sold at Christie’s, London, 13 June 2001, lot 229.
In Henry VI, Part II, Shakespeare writes a colorful threat for the rebel Jack Cade as he draws his sword on his enemy, Alexander Iden: ‘Ah villain… I’ll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow a sword like a great pin, ere thou and I part’ (act IV, scene 10). Cade’s invocation of the ostrich draws upon the ancient myth of the of the giant bird’s supposed unassailable digestive system. Despite its slight frame, the bird was believed to be capable of digesting all manner of materials, including iron and other metals. While some natural historians began to question this belief in the later seventeenth century, the image of the iron-eating ostrich endured, shaping it into a lasting symbol of the iron industry, and imbuing it with connotations of strength and moral fortitude.
OSTRICH
Ostrich eggs were long considered exotic organic marvels, being prized in Renaissance Kunstkammer alongside other precious natural specimens including nautilus and turbo shells. These natural wonders were often fitted with adornments by Europe’s finest artisans, who crafted mounts for them in precious metals, the most exquisite being adorned with stones and enamelwork. In this way, these curiosities would be reframed as objects resembling sculpture, or transformed into opulent vessels for drinking and decanting. A number of rare and magnificent ostrich-form vessels survive. One example, a Nuremburg ewer, circa 1630, formerly in the collection of John Pierpont Morgan and today preserved in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford (obj. no. 1917.272), is by Hans I Clauss, the same maker as the Zilkha Collection’s extraordinary nautilus shell cup. Like the present cup and cover, the ewer in the Wadsworth is formed as an ostrich discovered in the act of eating iron, standing on a naturalistic mound base with a horseshoe in its beak. Unlike the Zilkha cup and cover, the bird’s abdomen is formed of an impressive natural egg. A silver-bodied figure of an ostrich similar to the present lot, also modeled with a horseshoe in its beak, is in the Wallace Collection, London (inv. no. W102). The Wallace example is marked for Augsburg silversmith Elias Zorer, circa 1625, and displays an ovoid torso much like the Zilkha cup, although its body is chased with feathers and flaunts a less articulated and supple tail. A smaller silver-gilt figure of an ostrich without a horseshoe was sold Christie’s, London, 5 July 2000, lot 44, as part of the collection of Sir Harold Wernher (1893-1973).
ANDREAS WICKERT
Renowned Augsburg goldsmith, Andreas Wickert (1600-1661) became a Master around 1629 and was a member of the Great Council from 1657-1661. His oeuvre in precious metal reveals a remarkable talent for sculpture, as demonstrated by the naturalistic detail and lifelike dynamism of the present ostrich cup. His marks also appear on a magnificent parcel-gilt ‘display’ dish, or Schauplatte, chased with the Abduction of Prosperpina, and a wonderfully sculptural ewer in the form of Nessus and Dejanira, both in the collection of the Kremlin Museum, Moscow. Similarly, a figural group of Nessus and Dejanira by Wickert, circa 1630-1635, was sold Christie’s, Paris, 23 February 2009, lot 117. Most recently, a parcel-gilt figural candlestick depicting Venus and Cupid by Wickert was sold Christie’s, Paris, 14 June 2024, lot 146.
The rare enameled and jeweled gold neck-mount is presumably the work of a specialized jeweler working with Wickert on this commission. The work is typical of jewelry of this period and is somewhat similar to some of the designs to be found, a decade or so later, in Livre des Ouvrages d’Orfèvrerie fait par Gilles Légaŕe, Orfèvre du Roi.
PROVENANCE
The engraved coat-of-arms is that of Johann Joseph Koffler (1708-1767), who served as Münz-und Berg-Administrator (Master of the Mint and Mining) for the Austrian province of Steiermark (Styria). A ‘faithful commissioner’ of Empress Maria Theresa, Koffler urged the modernization of mining in the inner Austrian regions. He employed novel and efficient methods to convert iron, requiring less ore and fuel than traditional refining processes. On 19 August 1752, the civic administrator was ennobled as Edler von Kofflern, and thus received this grant of arms. It was likely around this time that Koffler acquired the present ostrich cup, upon which he had his arms engraved. A portrait of Koffler in the Stadtmuseum, Eisenerz, depicts the noble miner in a coat bordered in rich brocades, proudly displaying his coat-of-arms in the foreground.
Presumably it was Koffler, or one of his heirs, who presented the ostrich cup to the town of Leoben, situated about thirty miles north-west of Graz, the capital of the state of Styria. The association of the ostrich with the iron trade would have made this cup a fitting gift to Leoben, an ancient city with deep roots in the mining industry, and where as early as 1298, the ostrich had appeared in a wax seal representing the town. Although the city arms have evolved over the years, the bird still remains its emblem, its long connection with iron being represented by horseshoes held both in its beak in the claw of one raised leg.
A painting by Hungarian-born artist Joseph Ginovsky (1800-1857) depicts the ostrich cup with an unknown Leoben town official. Dressed in elaborate seventeenth-century costume, the official raises the lower half of the cup as if to drink from it. The upper portion, formed as the ostrich’s head and neck, rests upright on a table nearby. The painting is inscribed in the upper right corner F.E.H. unser wu(..)rdiger Vorsteher lebe hoch’ and ‘50 Dienstjahre 1841 (‘F.E.H. long live our dignified principal and 50 years of duty, 1841’) and was catalogued and photographed as in the collection of the Museum der Stadt, Leoben, but is now presumed to be lost. The artist, whose name is variously spelled Ginyocksy, Ginvszky and Ginowsky, was a pupil of the Wiener Akadamie and is recorded as working in Vienna from 1833.
In 1884⁄85, the ostrich cup was sold by the Leoben town council to illustrious art collector Nathaniel von Rothschild (1836-1905) for 12,000 gulden. It then descended to his brother Albert von Rothschild (1884-1911), and thence to Albert’s son, Alphonse von Rothschild (1878-1942). In 1938 it was confiscated by Nazi authorities. In 1947, Austrian authorities demanded a group of Rothschild objects, including the present lot, as a “donation” in exchange for granting export permits for the larger Clarice Rothschild collection still in Vienna. By this means the present lot entered the collection of the Landesmuseum-Joanneum (currently the Universalmuseum Joanneum) in Graz. The ostrich cup was restituted to the Rothschild family in 2000 and subsequently sold at Christie’s, London, 13 June 2001, lot 229.