A nutcracker is a tool designed to open nuts by cracking their shells. There are many designs, including levers, screws, and ratchets. The lever version is also used for cracking lobster and crab shells.
Furniture refers to objects intended to support various human activities such as seating, eating (tables), storing items, working, and sleeping. Furniture is also used to hold objects at a convenient height for work, or to store things. Furniture can be a product of design and can be considered a form of decorative art. In addition to furniture's functional role, it can serve a symbolic or religious purpose. It can be made from a vast multitude of materials, including metal, plastic, and wood. Furniture can be made using a variety of woodworking joints which often reflects the local culture.
A netsuke is a miniature sculpture, originating in 17th century Japan. Initially a simply-carved button fastener on the cords of an inrō box, netsuke later developed into ornately sculpted objects of craftsmanship.
In art history, the French term objet d'art describes an ornamental work of art, and the term objets d’art describes a range of works of art, usually small and three-dimensional, made of high-quality materials, and a finely-rendered finish that emphasises the aesthetics of the artefact. Artists create and produce objets d’art in the fields of the decorative arts and metalwork, porcelain and vitreous enamel; figurines, plaquettes, and engraved gems; ivory carvings and semi-precious hardstone carvings; tapestries, antiques, and antiquities; and books with fine bookbinding.
A mazer is a special type of wooden drinking vessel, a wide cup or shallow bowl without handles, with a broad flat foot and a knob or boss in the centre of the inside, known technically as the "print" or "boss". Mazers vary from simple pieces all in wood to those ornamented with metalwork, often in silver or silver-gilt. They use dense impervious woods such as maple, beech and walnut. They represent a north European medieval tradition, and mostly date from the 11th to the 16th centuries.
A drinking horn is the horn of a bovid used as a cup. Drinking horns are known from Classical Antiquity, especially the Balkans, and remained in use for ceremonial purposes throughout the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period in some parts of Europe, notably in Germanic Europe, and in the Caucasus. Drinking horns remain an important accessory in the culture of ritual toasting in Georgia in particular, where they are known by the local name of kantsi.
Champlevé is an enamelling technique in the decorative arts, or an object made by that process, in which troughs or cells are carved, etched, die struck, or cast into the surface of a metal object, and filled with vitreous enamel. The piece is then fired until the enamel fuses, and when cooled the surface of the object is polished. The uncarved portions of the original surface remain visible as a frame for the enamel designs; typically they are gilded in medieval work. The name comes from the French for "raised field", "field" meaning background, though the technique in practice lowers the area to be enamelled rather than raising the rest of the surface.
A nef is an extravagant table ornament and container used in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, made of precious metals in the shape of a ship – nef was another word for a carrack in French. If not just used for decoration, it could hold salt or spices, or cutlery, or even napkins. The large nef depicted in the well-known calendar miniature for January from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry is being used to hold, and perhaps wash, gilt dishes from the table service.
The Green Vault is a museum located in Dresden, Germany, which contains the largest treasure collection in Europe. The museum was founded in 1723 by Augustus the Strong of Poland and Saxony, and features a variety of exhibits in styles from Baroque to Classicism. The Green Vault is named after the formerly malachite green-painted column bases and capitals of the initial rooms. It has some claim to be the oldest museum in the world; it is older than the British Museum, opened in 1759, but the Kunstkamera in St. Petersburg, Russia was opened in 1714 and the Vatican Museums date their foundation to the public display of the newly excavated Laocoön group in 1506.
Silver-gilt or gilded/gilt silver, sometimes known in American English by the French term vermeil, is silver which has been gilded. Most large objects made in goldsmithing that appear to be gold are actually silver-gilt; for example most sporting trophies and many crown jewels are silver-gilt objects.
In 1898, Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild bequeathed to the British Museum as the Waddesdon Bequest the contents from his New Smoking Room at Waddesdon Manor. This consisted of a wide-ranging collection of almost 300 objets d'art et de vertu, which included exquisite examples of jewellery, plate, enamel, carvings, glass and maiolica. One of the earlier objects is the outstanding Holy Thorn Reliquary, probably created in the 1390s in Paris for John, Duke of Berry. The collection is in the tradition of a schatzkammer, or treasure house, such as those formed by the Renaissance princes of Europe; indeed, the majority of the objects are from late Renaissance Europe, although there are several important medieval pieces, and outliers from classical antiquity and medieval Syria.
The auricular style or lobate style is a style of ornamental decoration, mainly found in Northern Europe in the first half of the 17th century, bridging Northern Mannerism and the Baroque. The style was especially important and effective in silversmithing, but was also used in minor architectural ornamentation such as door and window reveals, picture frames, and a wide variety of the decorative arts. It uses softly flowing abstract shapes in relief, sometimes asymmetrical, whose resemblance to the side view of the human ear gives it its name, or at least its "undulating, slithery and boneless forms occasionally carry a suggestion of the inside of an ear or a conch shell". It is often associated with stylized marine animal forms, or ambiguous masks and shapes that might be such, which seem to emerge from the rippling, fluid background, as if the silver remained in its molten state.
A cup is an open-top vessel (container) used to hold liquids for drinking, typically with a flattened hemispherical shape, and often with a capacity of about 100–250 millilitres (3–8 US fl oz). Cups may be made of pottery, glass, metal, wood, stone, polystyrene, plastic, lacquerware, or other materials. Normally, a cup is brought in contact with the mouth for drinking, distinguishing it from other tableware and drinkware forms such as jugs. They also most typically have handles, though a beaker has no handle or stem, and small bowl shapes are very common in Asia.
A toilet service is a set of objects for use at the dressing table. The term is usually reserved for large luxury sets from the 17th to 19th centuries, with toilet set or vanity set used for later or simpler sets. Historically, services were made in metal, ceramics, and other materials, for both men and women, though male versions were generally much smaller. The rich had services in gold, silver, or silver-gilt. The contents vary, but typically include a mirror, one or more small ewers and basins, two candlesticks, and an assortment of bowls, boxes, caskets, and other containers. One or more brushes and a pin-cushion, often as a top to a box, are often included. The sets usually came with a custom-made travelling case, and some services were especially designed for travelling.
The coco chocolatero was a cup used to serve small quantities of beverages between the 17th century and the 19th century in countries like Mexico, Guatemala and Venezuela. It was made of coconut shell, hence its name.
Philippa Jane Glanville , OBE, FSA, formerly chief curator of the metal, silver and jewellery department of the Victoria and Albert Museum, is an English art historian who is an authority on silver and the history of dining.
Gothic boxwood miniatures are very small Christian-themed wood sculptures produced during the 15th and 16th centuries in the Low Countries, at the end of the Gothic period and during the emerging Northern Renaissance. They consist of highly intricate layers of reliefs, often rendered to nearly microscopic level, and are made from boxwood, which has a fine grain and high density suitable for detailed micro-carving. There are around 150 surviving examples; most are spherical rosary beads, statuettes, skulls, or coffins; some 20 are in the form of polyptychs, including triptych and diptych altarpieces, tabernacles and monstrances. The polyptychs are typically 10–13 cm (3.9–5.1 in) in height. Most of the beads are 10–15 cm (3.9–5.9 in) in diameter and designed so they could be held in the palm of a hand, hung from necklaces or belts, or worn as fashionable accessories.
Prayer nuts or Prayer beads are very small 16th century Gothic boxwood miniature sculptures, mostly originating from the north of today's Holland. They are typically detachable and open into halves of highly detailed and intricate Christian religious scenes. Their size varies between the size of a walnut and a golf ball. They are mostly the same shape, decorated with carved openwork Gothic tracery and flower heads. Most are 2–5 cm in diameter and designed so they could be held in the palm of a hand during personal devotion or hung from necklaces or belts as fashionable accessories.
The Aldobrandini Tazze are a set of 12 silver-gilt standing cups in the shallow tazza shape, sometimes described as bowls or dishes. They are outstanding examples of Renaissance metalwork, described by John Hayward as "the most impressive single monument of Italian and perhaps European goldsmith's work of the 16th century", and by the Victoria and Albert Museum as "one of the most spectacular groups of 16th century silver to survive".
Among the twelve coconut cups appearing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's online database,, one of the most splendid is the "Cup with Cover" by Hans van Amsterdam, a highly decorated silver gilt cup of 1533-34, with a coconut shell forming the bowl. In this period coconuts were exotic and expensive objects, to which medical or even magical powers were attributed when used as cups. They were one of a number of substances claimed to have the power to detect or neutralize poisons.
