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Goldsmith’s Art

Globe goblet

Key data

Jakob Stampfer, Zurich, 1550/1552

Cast and beaten silver, engraved, and partly gold-plated

H 38 cm

Inv. 1882.103.

Amerbach Cabinet

Description

Bonifacius Amerbach bought this superb piece from his friend Thomas Blarer, the Mayor of Constance, in 1555. We know from the written account of a guest of Amerbach’s son Basilius dated 1579 that the family used the two halves of the globe as drinking vessels, having learned how to do so from a goldsmith and by following written instructions. Whether this is what the globe’s maker, the goldsmith Jakob Stampfer (1505/1506–1579) of Zurich, intended it is impossible to say, since the scientific character of the piece seems to be the more important one. The rotating terrestrial globe rests on a circular foot with an engraved perpetual calendar and a baluster-shaped shaft. It is encircled by an equator ring with an engraved calendar and a graduated meridian ring. Mounted on the north polar cap is a small armillary sphere. Of particular interest is the cartographic representation of the Earth’s surface with its gold-plated land masses and silver oceans populated by sea monsters and the explanatory inscriptions engraved in the globe’s surface.

Selection of similar objects

 
Contact

Basel Historical Museum
Management & administration
Steinenberg 4
PO box
CH – 4001 Basel

Reception: +41 61 205 86 00
historisches.museum(at)bs.ch

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