When young Johann Friedrich Baer called this cup of his a “masterpiece,” he wasn’t being boastful. Every craftsman angling for membership in a professional guild had to produce a “master piece” to demonstrate his skill. The guild for metalsmiths required a covered cup, even though they had long been out of style. The panel reviewing Baer’s cup in 1746 declared his work to be excellent (despite a few microscopic holes in the casting) and he was accepted as a Master of the Echasse Guild, just like his father and brother before him and his son after him. Baer kept the cup until he died.
On the cover, the mythological hero Hercules slays the three-headed monster Cerberus. Baer inscribed the cover: “With this club I strike my enemies under me,” referring to Hercules’s victory but possibly also to Baer’s triumph over jealous colleagues with this masterpiece.
Pan, the Greek half-goat/half-human god of wild places, perches on the stem of the cup eating grapes in a bower of bulrushes, acanthus leaves, and grape vines. Such florid images from nature were popular during the period of Rococo style.
Baer’s cup was a terrific advertisement, illustrating just about every type of scene a potential patron could have wanted, from ancient mythology to recent battles. At the time, Europe was embroiled in a war to settle whether Maria Theresa, the daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, would stay the first and only female ruler of the Habsburg Empire.
The inscription at the base of the cup was added later, when the cup was displayed in Paris. But there was a slip of the chisel when the inscription was added later, and the date is given as "1756" instead of "1746"; also Baer's name is written "Bäer" here with the umlaut.
The silver-gilt cup liner is detachable, like a modern-day cup koozie— probably not for insulating but so the judges could see how the piece was made.
The lid shows the artist in his studio, surrounded by tools of the trade—an anvil and hammer on the forge as well as a heating cauldron and box of chasing punches beside him on the table.