Miniature - Carved Shepherd's Cup - Turned And Engraved Wood - Folk Art - Massif Central

Dating: Late XIXᵉ century

Origine : France - Massif central, Auvergne

Provenance: Musée de la Vie du Monde Régional - Maison de Sailles.

Rare and touching shepherd's cup carved from a single piece of wood, resting on a flared pedestal and adorned with a rich decoration of scrolls, foliage and deeply incised stylized motifs. The elegantly carved side grip bears witness to an aesthetic research uncommon in the world of pastoral objects.

This piece perfectly illustrates the creativity of Massif Central craftsmen and peasants, able to draw inspiration from the learned forms seen in more affluent homes and reinterpret them with their own means and sensibility. Behind this modest mug lies a genuine process of admiration and appropriation. It's easy to imagine its author discovering a richly crafted cup or goblet in a bourgeois home, then seeking to reproduce its lines and elegance in the material he mastered best: wood.

It is precisely this meeting of popular culture and more prestigious models that gives the object all its emotional power. Far from being a simple copy, this mug becomes a sincere and personal reinterpretation, charged with humanity. Each stroke of the knife, each irregularity of the decoration tells of the wondering gaze of a self-taught craftsman faced with a form he wished to make his own.

The quality of the carving, the beautiful patina of use and the rarity of this type of production make it a remarkable testimony to 19th-century Auvergne folk art.

Condition: good condition with wear and patina consistent with age. Some slight traces of use and minor accidents with no impact on the reading of the object.

Dimensions: 7 cm

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