Ornately Carved Coconut With Silver Mounts Standing On Three Chicken Feet, 18th century

A delicately carved coconut shell with rondels depicting a European with mandolin/lute next to a perching bird and a baboon, a man in checked trousers with a camel, a seated lion, a tiny bird amidst flowers, a cormorant and a deer. The rim and base have silver mounts which are secured with silver straps and floret pins.

Some scratches to the coconut, but otherwise in good condition. Two tiny splits to the bottom of the silver rim and age imperfections. No hallmarks but tested as silver.

Coconuts are genetically native to the Maldives. Exported to India by Roman times, they were carried on trade routes to Europe. The first reference to a coconut cup in England was in the will of the Bishop of Durham in 1259. Known as ‘nuts of India’, they became fashionable in the late 15th century and throughout the 16th century, then again in Georgian times. Highly prized, they were mounted in silver and turned into cups for the wealthy. They believed that the shell of the coconut would act as a natural defence against poison.