The niello technique was practiced almost exclusively in Russia in the late seventeenth century and has therefore been identified with that nation. The decoration on this tumbler suggests that foreign trade had an influence on Russian design. Each of the four cartouches decorating the upper part of this tall cup features a female figure with mixed allegorical attributes. The naïve baroque frames with masks at the bottom encircling the figures are shaded to resemble crosshatching, in imitation of engraved prints. It has been argued that many of the motifs on this cup came to Moscow from Ukraine in the form of engravings and book illustrations.

Bequest of Marjorie Merriweather Post, 1973

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