Ask the Scholar

The interior of this drinking vessel is in silver gilt whereas the exterior is in a richly veined wood simulating in appearance a coconut shell. Such exotic materials were occasionally employed by Moscow silversmiths for drinking vessels as early as the 17th century. An early example, now in the Walters Art Museum (44.194), which came from the Count Aleksandr A. Musin-Pushkin collection, has been published by Anne Odom in Baltimore 1996, pp. 30-31, no. 5. She also cites another example published by N.V. Kaliazina et al in Russkaia emal' XII-XX veka, St. Petersburg, 1907, p. 141.Silver gilt and filigree enamel have been used for the bands around the top and bottom of the bratina, the three connecting straps, and the foot. Abstract floral designs in opaque dark and light blue, translucent green and white enamel are rendered in raised filigree designs over an unfinished gilt surface. The hall marks appear to be illegible because of corrosion, but the circular koskoshnik on the bottom border resembles that of the Kostroma master assayer A. Soldivola, who was active from 1896-1905.