From the September 2025 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.

The nautilus as we know it has been around for hundreds of millions of years, which means we are far closer in time to the heyday of the T-rex than the T-rex was to the first nautili. The same could be said about the crocodile or the jellyfish, but there’s something uniquely mysterious about the nautilus – for instance, the geometry of its shell seems to follow the Fibonacci sequence, which led Renaissance scholars to declare it an example of divine design. At that time no Westerner had seen a living nautilus. Only once the creature died and its shell floated to the surface of the sea could its mysteries be studied.

The word ‘nautilus’ comes from the Greek for ‘sailor’, but no nautilus ever went very far under its own steam. In the 16th century, however, their shells began to travel the world from their native habitat in the oceans of the Indo-Pacific. They were transported to Europe either by Islamic merchants taking the Silk Road to Venice or by Portuguese traders, who had set up outposts in Malacca and Macau in 1511 and 1557 respectively and were the only European traders authorised to export items from China. It is most probably thanks to the Portuguese that these remarkable shells – sometimes engraved in Asia before being exported – made it to northern Europe and into the hands of some of the continent’s finest goldsmiths.

This dazzling nautilus cup – one of the finest items in the Schroder Collection, which is on display from this month onwards in the new Schroder Gallery at the Holburne Museum in Bath – was designed in Nuremberg by the goldsmith Friedrich Hillebrandt. He was one of the most famous goldsmiths of his generation in the city, which is saying something given how many other goldsmiths came out of Nuremberg – Wenzel Jamnitzer, for instance, many of whose objects can still be seen today in the Green Vault in Dresden or the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Nuremberg was a free imperial city within the Holy Roman Empire: it wasn’t ruled by bishops or a duke; its leaders answered directly to the Emperor. It therefore had freedom of trade, which made it a very rich city indeed. All sorts of goods flooded in, and Nuremberg became an important centre for the production of silver objects.

This particular cup was made of silver embellished with a plating of gold. This was done by mixing gold granules with mercury, applying the mixture to the surface and then burning off the mercury. Gilding was a costly addition and was done to enrich the appearance of the object, with the additional benefit of protecting the work from tarnish. The base of the cup would have been cast using a mould, probably made of clay or plaster, filled with molten metal, and then chased – that is, hammered and punched from the top to create a three-dimensional design– and engraved with various tools. There are some remarkable sculptural elements, such as the putti heads on the straps that hold the shell to the lip of the cup; the straps are detachable so that the nautilus can be removed.

And then there are the engravings on the nautilus shell itself. In its original state, the shell would have borne a pattern of red or orange stripes. The craftspeople in Asia would have bathed it in acid to strip it of its protective surface, and then carved it like a cameo, removing further parts of the surface to achieve gradations of iridescence and lustre. Then they would have engraved it, probably with a burin. Who exactly did the carving is uncertain. We know that the shells for 17th-century nautilus cups were produced in the Canton region of China, but we have no records for 16th-century shells such as this one; the styles and subjects of the engravings on the shells from this period vary widely, not least in the level of skill applied. Nonetheless, the theme, clothing and hairdos would suggest Chinese craftsmanship. We are looking at a processional scene of figures on horseback, with Chinese headdress and parasols being moved by the wind. At the front of the procession are two figures walking on a platform or bridge, holding what seem like lanterns. It’s all very naturalistic but we don’t know whether it’s depicting a specific scene or event, or whether it’s a generic procession; it’s hard to make out a narrative.

It’s likely that Hillebrandt’s workshop – and the Portuguese or Islamic traders, for that matter – had no relationship with the Chinese craftspeople. China controlled all trade very tightly; there was an air of secrecy around many Chinese products, especially porcelain, the luminous, almost translucent whiteness of which Europeans spent centuries trying and failing to replicate. Such exclusivity only added to the allure of East Asian objects for European collectors with an eye for the exotic.

We don’t know who commissioned this particular nautilus cup, but we know it would have been made for a Kunstkammer, or room of wonders, to impress illustrious guests. Items in a Kunstkammer, which first came about in northern Europe in the 16th century, were selected and assembled to create a microcosm of the world. Objects were divided into two main categories: artificialia and naturalia. The former comprised wonders crafted by man; the latter the wonders of nature. Notwithstanding the fact that the naturalia were not purely natural – they were presented on silver mounts, or studded with precious materials – they were further subdivided into organic and inorganic material. Within these subcategories there were particularly special materials; the star inorganic material was rock crystal, a type of crystalline quartz that could be polished and shaped into hollow vessels. (Pliny the Elder thought it was frozen water that had never defrosted and until the Venetians perfected glass in the 16th century it was the clearest material around.) Of the organic materials, the most impressive was the nautilus, given its shape and provenance.

You might think the nautilus would be glorious enough on its own, but European craftspeople took these shells to a whole new level. The gilded frieze on this particular cup is an excellent example: its elaborate nature is typical of Mannerism, which was winding down in Italy at the time but was still going strong in northern Europe. The frieze also brings together three domains of knowledge or belief that were prevalent in the late 16th century: astronomy, astrology and mythology. 

Around the frieze the sun and moon are interspersed with gods that represent the planets. (Copernicus had published his theory of heliocentrism some 50 years earlier, but many in Europe were still holding on to elements of the geocentric theory.) Read from left to right, the first creatures you see are a prancing goat and a water bearer – Capricorn and Aquarius, who are ruled over by Saturn. Saturn stands next to them, devouring his sons; he’s also holding a scythe, as the god of agriculture. Then you have Mars, the god of war, holding a scimitar and a shield; previous records have identified him as Perseus with the head of Medusa, though this reading would be out of kilter with the planetary framework. Next comes the personification of the sun, who is sitting on a lion and holding either a mirror emblazoned with the sun or a sun-shaped fan in his right hand and a cloud in his left.

Now we’re in the middle of the frieze. There’s a neat symmetry here: as the sun figure looks to his left, Venus, on the other side of the partition that marks the halfway point, looks to her right, towards Cupid, who is wielding an arrow. In a lunette beneath the sun and Venus are two sirens, also mirroring each other, with a gemstone in each hand. Next to Venus and Cupid in the second half of the frieze stands Mercury, holding his staff with two snakes intertwined; and the personification of the moon, holding a crescent and a trumpet. This figure resembles Diana, the goddess of the hunt; the trumpet is the horn that was blown to begin the chase.

All these gods are interspersed with signs of the zodiac – not just Capricorn and Aquarius but the little scales for Libra and the bull for Taurus. Hillebrandt’s attention to detail is remarkable. The caduceus alone would have been enough to identify Mercury, but Hillebrandt also added a purse, because Mercury was the god of commerce, and a rooster, which often accompanied Mercury to symbolise the new day. The goldsmith was keen to show that he understood mythology as well as astronomy.

This is also demonstrated through the stem of the cup, which is made up of a depiction of Apollo. As god of the sun he is holding the entire thing aloft, in a nod to heliocentrism, but as the god of music and archery he is also holding a lyre in one hand and a bow in the other. Though his physique is commanding, his almost goofy expression emphasises his relative youth. It makes for a striking contrast with Jupiter, a serious, bearded figure, with wrinkles on his forehead to show his age if not his stormy mood.

Apollo’s bow may have had a string that has since been lost. These are extremely fragile pieces. Even Jupiter, looking magisterial astride an eagle at the top of the cup, isn’t immune from damage: his spear in particular is liable to bend if not handled with the utmost care. It’s remarkable that in more than 400 years, besides a few cracks in the shell, the nautilus cup has remained in such impressive condition. This October marks the 120th anniversary of the cup entering the Schroder Collection. It was acquired from the London dealer S.J. Phillips, though we don’t have a record of who owned it before that.

The core of the Schroder Collection was assembled by Baron Sir John Henry Schroder around the turn of the 20th century. His taste was fairly sombre: he acquired some Huguenot and Elizabethan silver, but nothing too ornate. He left the collection in the care of his nephew, Baron Bruno Schroder, who, along with his wife, Emma, enriched the collection with more opulent items. They shared a birthday and would give each other pieces of silver as presents. One of the many remarkable items in their collection is another silver-gilt work by Hillebrandt – a combination fork and spoon studded with garnets and decorated with Saint George facing down the dragon. It’s extremely refined work and brings home the extent of Hillebrandt’s talent: anyone who can make a spork look that good surely has the Midas touch.

As told to Arjun Sajip.

Caterina Badan is curator of the Schroder Collection, which will be on display at the Holburne Museum, Bath, from 10 September.

From the September 2025 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.