Memorial Guild Cup (Adam van Vianen)

The Memorial Guild Cup by Adam van Vianen is a 1614 silver-gilt covered ewer in the Rijksmuseum, commissioned by the Amsterdam goldsmiths' guild to commemorate the death of Adam's brother Paulus van Vianen.

It has been described as "a strikingly original work that is largely abstract and completely sculptural in its conception", and quickly became famous, appearing in several Dutch Golden Age paintings, both still lifes and history paintings, "no doubt in part because its bizarre form allowed it to pass as an object from an ancient and foreign land", and so useful for Old Testament scenes and the like.

Van Vianen's breakthrough was the introduction of inchoate or indeterminate form, which paved the way for both Rococo and modernist ornament.

But the woman's legs slide away under the swirling forms of the top of the cover, and the handle terminates as a protuberance from the nose of a monster.

[5] In the same year, van Vianen made a ewer and basin for the City Corporation of Amsterdam in a far more conventional style, though with elements of auricular decoration.