Royal Gold Cup

The Royal Gold Cup or Saint Agnes Cup is a solid gold covered cup lavishly decorated with enamel and pearls. It was made for the French royal family at the end of the 14th century, and later belonged to several English monarchs before spending nearly 300 years in Spain. It has been in the British Museum since 1892, where it is normally on display in Room 40, and is generally agreed to be the outstanding surviving example of late medieval French plate. It has been described as "the one surviving royal magnificence of the International Gothic age". According to Thomas Hoving, former Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, "of all the princely jewels and gold that have come down to us, this is the most spectacular—and that includes the great royal treasures."

The cup is made of solid gold, stands 23.6 cm (9.25 inches) high with a diameter of 17.8 cm (6.94 inches) at its widest point, and weighs 1.935 kg (4.26 lb). It has a cover that lifts off, but the triangular stand on which it once stood is now lost. The stem of the cup has twice been extended by the addition of cylindrical bands, so that it was originally much shorter, giving the overall shape "a typically robust and stocky elegance." The original decorated knop or finial on the cover has been lost, and a moulding decorated with 36 pearls has been removed from the outer edge of the cover; a strip of gold with jagged edges can be seen where it was attached. Presumably it matched the one still in place round the foot of the cup.

The gold surfaces are decorated with scenes in basse-taille enamel with translucent colours that reflect light from the gold beneath; many areas of gold both underneath the enamel and in the background have engraved and pointillé decoration worked in the gold. In particular the decoration features large areas of translucent red, which have survived in excellent condition. This colour, known as rouge clair, was the most difficult to achieve technically, and highly prized for this and the brilliance of the colour when it was done successfully. Scenes from the life of Saint Agnes run round the top of the cover and the sloping underside of the main body. The symbols of the Four Evangelists run round the foot of the cup, and there are enamel medallions at the centre of the inside of both the cup and the cover. The lower of the two added bands contains enamel Tudor roses on a diapered pointillé background; this was apparently added under Henry VIII. The upper band has an engraved inscription filled in with black enamel, with a barrier of laurel branches in green to mark off the end of the inscription from its beginning.

The cup came to the British Museum with a custom-made hexagonal case of leather on a wood frame, with iron lock, handles and mounts. This was either made at the same time or soon after the cup, and has incised and stamped foliate decoration and a blackletter inscription: YHE.SUS.O.MARYA.O.MARYA YHE SUS.

There is no firm evidence as to the date and circumstances of the creation of the cup. It is first clearly documented in an inventory from 1391 of the valuables belonging to Charles VI of France (reigned 1380–1422), surviving in two copies in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. This lists:

A hanap of gold, all its cover well and richly enamelled on the outside with the life of Madame St Agnes; and the cresting of the foot is garnished with 26 pearls, and the crown around the cover with 36 pearls; and the finial of the said cover (is) garnished with four sapphires, three balas rubies and fifteen pearls. And it weighs 9 marcs 3 ounces of gold. and the said hanap rests on a stand of gold in the form of a tripod, and in the middle of the tripod is represented Our Lady in a sun on a ground of clear red, and the three feet of the tripod are formed by three winged dragons. The said hanap and cover were given to the king by monseigneur the duc de Berry on his journey into Touraine in the year 91.

John, Duke of Berry (1340–1416) was Charles VI's uncle and a powerful figure in the kingdom, as well as the most famous and extravagant collector and commissioner of art of his day. He is still best known for commissioning the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, the famous International Gothic illuminated manuscript, and also commissioned the Holy Thorn Reliquary, now in the British Museum. The young King Charles had been forced to remove his uncle from governorships after the latter's rapacious conduct had led to unrest, and the meeting in 1391 marked their reconciliation after a period of bad relations. Lavish gifts among the Valois court circle were routine, and on this occasion Berry had special reason to be generous.

The cup appears in another inventory of Charles VI in 1400, and then is not recorded until it appears as the property of another royal uncle, and collector, John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford (1389–1435), son of Henry IV, who was briefly Regent of both France and England for his infant nephew Henry VI. How he acquired the cup is not known, but he would have received many gifts from Charles VI, and had both lent the king money and bought from him things such as the library of the Palais du Louvre, in the uneasy period when Charles had made peace with the English and made Henry V his heir. After the death of his brother Henry V, Bedford struggled to stem the resurgent French resistance, which was energised by Joan of Arc. He died in Normandy in 1435, leaving Henry VI as his heir.