10 things about the Royal Treasure

The rulers of the Netherlands for centuries kept this masterpiece in the royal treasure house. In 1881 the German Von Wied family inherited the cup. A Dutch family recently bought the cup and immediately passed it to the Rijksmuseum as a long-term loan.

In the 17th century, many gold and silver artworks were more expensive than paintings. For example, a silver ewer and basin by Van Vianen was valued at seven times the price of The Night Watch at the time it was made.

Paul was born into a family of silversmiths. At the age of 16 he traveled to the royal courts of Europe to work and to learn. In the end he was appointed as silversmith to the royal court of Rudolph II in Prague.

This cup is the only known work by Van Vianen that he made from gold and signed with his full name. Here you can see his signature and the date.

The scenes depicted are from the Ancient Greek myth in which Actaeon spies on Diana as she bathes. She transforms him into a stag, whereupon hunters and hounds chase him down and kill him.

The body of the cup show Diana splashing water on Actaeon, transforming him into a stag; and a stag being hunted and killed. The three gods depicted on top of the lid indicate that love must be fed. The underside of the lid features a portrait of the artist’s client.

The fantastical masks on the lid and around the foot tell us that we are looking at the heavens. The plain band separating the lid from the scene on the body of the cup indicates that the lower scenes are set here on earth.

He was the man who commissioned Paul van Vianen to make the cup. The marriage of Heinrich Julius’s daughter to Ernst Casimir led to the cup becoming the property of the Royal House of Orange.

Chasing is an exceptionally demanding metalworking technique: working with extreme precision, the goldsmith used a hammer and tiny smooth-tipped chisels to ‘chase’ the metal.

When the Rijksmuseum first opened, a list was drawn up of gold and silver artworks that the museum was keen to have in its collection. The long-term loan of the gold cup means that this wish has at last been fulfilled.