Memorial Guild Cup (Adam van Vianen) (original) (raw)

The Memorial Guild Cup by Adam van Vianen is a 1614 silver-gilt covered ewer in the Rijksmuseum, commissioned by the Amsterdam goldsmiths' guild to commemorate the death of Adam's brother Paulus van Vianen. It is an iconic symbol of the auricular style developed by the two brothers. Parts of the decoration form definite forms, the ewer rests on a crouching monkey, and the handle begins as the hair of a woman bent forward. But the woman's legs slide away under the swirling forms of the top of the cover, and the handle terminates as a protuberance from the nose of a monster.