drinking-cup The Lycurgus Cup

Unknown artist

4th C

glass; silver; gilded

British Museum

Drinking-cup; glass; green and red; covered with various scenes representing the death of King Lycurgus; rim mounted with silver-gilt band of leaf ornament, plus silver-gilt foot with open-work vine leaves. Exhibited at the Society of Arts, 1850. See: 'Illustrated London News', vol.16, 13 April 1850, p.252; Catalogue of Works of Ancient and Mediaeval Art, Exhibited at the House of the Society of Arts, London, 1850, no.626, p.63.For detailed bibliography on both the cup and diatreta in general see: D. B. Harden and J. M. C. Toynbee, ‘The Rothschild Lycurgus cup’,… Archaeologia 97 (1959), 179–212, esp. 207; D.B. Harden, ‘The Rothschil