Bacchic Cantharus From The Hildesheim Treasure

Bacchic cantharus from the Hildesheim Treasure
Silvered and partially gilt copper
France
1868
14.5 x 16.5 cm (5.75 x 6.5 in.)

The Musée des Arts décoratifs and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris hold a similar cup, a facsimile of a Bacchic cantharus from the famous Hildesheim Treasure, discovered on 17 October 1868 at the foot of the Galgenberg in Lower Saxony and now at the Pergamonmuseum in Berlin.

Adorned with “theatrical masks, thyrsi, cymbals, panpipes, vine stocks and ivy branches gracefully and poetically intertwined,” as is customary in objects of this kind (Lenormant, 1969, p. 418), it bears, like the version in the Arts décoratifs and Orsay collections, the signature of Christofle & Cie, which had faithfully reproduced most of the pieces of the Hildesheim Treasure by the process of electroplating. The present cup, like the examples in the Arts décoratifs and Orsay, was originally partially gilt, though the gilding here, unlike theirs, is particularly worn.

See François Lenormant, “Le Trésor d’Hildesheim,” in La Gazette des Beaux-Arts, t. II, 2, 157ᵉ, Paris, 1869 and Charles Picard, “La date du ‘Vase d’Alésia’,” Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 93e année, n° 3, 1949.