Ribbed Palm Cup

Place of OriginLikely Germany, reportedly from Bingen

Date7th century CE

DimensionsH: 2 15/16 in. (7.5 cm); Rim Diam: 3 7/32 in. (8.2 cm)

MediumBlown and tooled glass

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Dr. Richard H. Edmondson

Object number

1983.86

Not on View

DescriptionA straight-sided cup of transparent olive-brown glass with a rounded, unstable base. The body features ten mold-blown vertical ribs that extend from just below the rim down to the bottom of the vessel. The rim is rounded and thickened. The base features five small, hot-tooled knobs arranged in a quincunx pattern (four points surrounding a central point).

Label TextThis amber-colored vessel is known as a "palm cup" because its rounded bottom prevents it from being set down on a flat surface. In the feasting halls of the Frankish elite (modern-day France and Germany), such cups functioned as "social enforcers": once filled with wine or mead, the cup had to be held in the palm of the hand until emptied entirely or passed to another guest.

This object belongs to a group of glass vessels and ornaments reportedly found in a single Frankish grave at Bingen, a settlement along the Rhine west of Mainz. The group includes two palm cups (1977.11, 1983.86), a gaming piece (1981.56), and two beads (1977.20, 1981.55). In the sixth and seventh centuries this region formed part of the Merovingian kingdoms, whose elite communities buried their dead with ornaments and vessels that marked identity, status, and regional taste.

Published ReferencesLuckner, Kurt T., Decorative Arts Soc Newsletter, 1982, p. 11 repr.

Effros, Bonnie, "Art of the 'Dark Ages': Showing Merovingian Artifacts in North American Public and Private Collections," Journal of the History of Collections, vol. 17, no. 1, 2005, p. 110, no. 100.

Comparative ReferencesSee also Vanderhoeven, M., Verres romains tardifs et Merovingiens du Musée Curtius, Liege, 1958, esp. p. 65, no. 69. On palm cups in general cf. Harden 1968 (Arch J) pp. 89-92; Harden 1956 (Fest Leeds) p. 138, fig 25, pp. 142ff., M. Vanderhoeven 1958, esp. pp. 65ff. Same pattern as Fremersdorf 1961 (Gelformtes Glas,) 132 (fragmentary), and Schulge A l'ambe de la France (exhibition at Music du Luxembourg, Paris) p. 123, no. 168, fig. 78 (same bowl as Fremersdorf 1961). cf. ASAN XLVIII 1956: Werner, pp. 307-311, Dasnoy, pp. 360-373, and Breuer and Roosens, pp. 195-255 for discussions of these bowls with mold blown Christian symbols as a group.