# The Royal Gold Cup > Unknown royal goldsmith, Parisian court workshop - c. 1370-1391 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/parisian-court-goldsmith-charles-vi/royal-gold-cup-saint-agnes-british-museum/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-12 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unknown royal goldsmith, Parisian court workshop - **Date:** c. 1370-1391 - **Medium:** Solid gold, basse-taille translucent enamel, pearls - **Dimensions:** Height 236 mm; cup diameter 178 mm; foot diameter 102 mm; weight 2105.3 g (British Museum catalogue figures). A separate figure of 1.935 kg for the weight appears in secondary literature; the discrepancy is unresolved in the sources consulted. - **Object type:** Goldsmith's work - **Period:** French, late fourteenth century (Valois court) - **Current location:** British Museum, London - **Attribution:** unknown ## Summary A solid gold covered cup, made for the French royal household at the end of the fourteenth century and decorated in translucent basse-taille enamel with the life and posthumous miracles of Saint Agnes. First documented in 1391 as a gift from Jean, Duke of Berry, to his nephew Charles VI of France, it passed into English hands under the Regent John, Duke of Bedford, was pawned twice to pay for the collapsing war in France, and descended through the Tudor royal jewel house. In 1604 James I gave it to the Spanish Constable of Castile to mark the peace between the two crowns, and by 1610 it had been placed, under a deed forbidding its sale, in a convent of Poor Clares at Medina de Pomar near Burgos.It stayed there for close to three centuries. In 1882 the convent, short of money, had it carried to Paris for sale, and it passed through a French collector and a London dealer before Augustus Wollaston Franks secured it for the British Museum in 1892 for 8,000 pounds, raised jointly from the Treasury and a subscription of private donors. No theft is recorded at any point in this history: the object left the convent because the nuns chose to sell it, and a lawsuit brought by the donor's descendant to block that sale on the strength of the 1610 deed was heard and lost in the French courts in 1891.Several losses predate all of this. A jewelled finial and a gilt tripod stand described in the cup's own 1391 inventory entry were already missing by 1435, when the object appears as the first item in an inventory taken after the Duke of Bedford's death - a loss that happened inside the English royal treasury a century and a half before the object ever reached Spain, and centuries before any nineteenth-century sale. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **c. 1370-1391** Unknown; the object as it survives is first securely documented in 1391 `[documented]` (production) Made in Paris in solid gold with basse-taille enamel. The British Museum's general summary dates the object c. 1370-1380; its own curatorial commentary argues on stylistic grounds for a date nearer 1390, closer to the year of first documentation. No maker is named in any source. - **1391-1422** Charles VI, King of France `[documented]` (gift) First documented in a 1391 inventory of Charles VI's plate as a gift from his uncle, Jean, Duke of Berry. Two copies of the inventory survive at the Bibliotheque nationale de France (Ms. fr. 21445, covering 1391-1398, and Ms. fr. 21446, a general inventory to 1405). The choice of Saint Agnes as subject is read, as an argued case rather than a proven fact, against Charles VI's father Charles V's own documented devotion to the saint, whose feast day was his birthday. - **1422-1435** John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, Regent of France and England `[unknown]` (unknown mechanism of transfer) How the cup left French royal custody and reached Bedford is not documented. Bedford is recorded as having lent Charles VI money and purchased other crown property, including the Louvre library, during the period of the dual monarchy created by the 1420 Treaty of Troyes, and one of these dealings is the likely route, but no source states the transfer outright. It is documented by his death in 1435 that he held the cup: an inventory prepared for Cardinal Henry Beaufort lists it as the first item, already lacking its tripod stand, and misidentifying its enamels as the life of Saint Susanna rather than Saint Agnes. - **1435-1604** The English royal treasury (crown property) `[documented]` (inheritance into crown custody, with two pawnings) Pawned in 1449 and again in 1451 to help finance England's failing military effort in France. Recorded again in materials of Henry VIII's reign (1521, and an inventory of 1532) and under Elizabeth I (1574, 1596). A cylindrical enamel band with Tudor roses was added to the stem during this period, most plausibly under Henry VIII. Custody between the 1451 pawning and the 1521 record is not itemised in sources consulted. - **1604-1610** Juan Fernandez de Velasco, 5th Duke of Frias, Constable of Castile `[documented]` (diplomatic gift) Given by James I at the conclusion of the Somerset House Conference, the treaty ending the Anglo-Spanish war, as a gift to the leader of the Spanish delegation. This is documented independently of any later inventory or catalogue: the gift is commemorated in a Latin inscription added to the cup's stem in Spain, naming Velasco and the peace directly. A second enamelled cylindrical band, carrying the inscription, was added at this time. Velasco himself described the object, inaccurately as to its metal, as a silver-gilt cup. - **1610-1882** Convento de Santa Clara (Poor Clares), Medina de Pomar, near Burgos `[documented]` (donation, under a deed restricting future sale) Given to the convent, a house founded by the Velasco family in the fourteenth century as their own burial church, under a deed of gift that forbade its alienation. No source consulted documents any specific episode of the cup being hidden or threatened during the Napoleonic occupation and the Peninsular War of 1808-1814; this is recorded as an absence of evidence, not as a denial that such an episode could have occurred. - **1882-1883** Baron Jerome Pichon, Paris `[documented]` (sale) The convent, short of funds, entrusted the cup to the priest Simon Campo, who took it to Paris to approach dealers and collectors. Pichon examined it, including the added cylinder and inscription, and purchased it. This was a voluntary sale by the owner, not a theft; no source consulted reports a burglary, criminal prosecution, or any item of the cup going missing at this point. - **1883-1891** Baron Jerome Pichon, contested by lawsuit `[documented]` (litigation) The reigning Duke of Frias, descendant of the 1604/1610 donor, sued in the French courts to recover the cup, arguing the 1610 deed of gift made the 1882 sale void. He lost the case in 1891. - **1891-1892** Messrs. Wertheimer, Bond Street, London `[documented]` (sale (dealer)) Following the French court's ruling, the cup was sold on to the London dealers Wertheimer, from whom Augustus Wollaston Franks identified and secured it for the British Museum. - **1892-present** British Museum, London `[documented]` (acquisition) Purchased for 8,000 pounds, funded by a Treasury grant together with a subscription of private donors including Franks himself, Wertheimer, the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, Charles Drury Edward Fortnum, the Duke of Northumberland, Lord Savile, Lord Iveagh, and the Earl of Crawford. This was a private-treaty purchase, not an auction sale. On permanent display in Room 40 since acquisition. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **1892** Not an auction; private-treaty sale to the British Museum via the dealers Wertheimer of Bond Street, - Estimate: Not applicable - Hammer: Not applicable (no auction) - With premium: Not applicable (no auction) - Total purchase price 8,000 pounds, met by a Treasury grant and a subscription of named private donors. The 1882 sale from the convent to Baron Jerome Pichon in Paris was likewise a private transaction with no auction house, lot number, or disclosed price found in the sources consulted. No public auction sale of this object has been identified at any point in its recorded history. ## Open questions - By what mechanism, and in what year, did the cup pass from the French royal treasury to John, Duke of Bedford - sources give both about 1420 and 1435, and no inventory, receipt or chronicle entry has been found that states the transfer directly. - Is there any genuine documentary basis for the popular claim that the cup was hidden at Medina de Pomar during the Napoleonic occupation and the Peninsular War of 1808 to 1814 - no source consulted for this record documents such an episode. - What happened to the cup's original tripod stand and jewelled finial between their last inventory mention in 1391 and their confirmed absence in 1435 - lost, broken up, or deliberately removed is not stated in any source found. - Which of the two published weights for the object is correct: the British Museum's own 2105.3 grams, or the 1.935 kilograms given in secondary literature, and does the difference reflect a different scope of what was weighed. - What custody the cup passed through in the English royal treasury between its second pawning in 1451 and the Henry VIII-era records of 1521 and 1532 - a gap of roughly seventy years not itemised in any source consulted. - Is the 1370 to 1380 dating given in the British Museum's general summary, or the circa 1390 dating argued in the museum's own curatorial commentary on stylistic grounds, the one the museum would now stand behind if asked directly. - Whether the popular claim that the cup was stolen from the convent in 1883, with the foot and gems never recovered, has any origin at all in the documentary record, or is a confusion with a different object's history - this research found only a voluntary sale, contested by lawsuit and not by theft. ## Sources - [1] British Museum, Collection Online, object record for 'cup', museum number 1892,0501.1 (the Royal Gold Cup), including curator's comments, dimensions, inscription and bibliography. - [2] Wikipedia, 'Royal Gold Cup'. A tertiary synthesis, well referenced to Dalton, Lightbown, Maryon and the British Museum's own records; flagged for replacement with the primary literature (Dalton 1924, Stratford 2022) where a stronger citation is needed. - [3] Maryon, Herbert. 'New Light on the Royal Gold Cup.' British Museum Quarterly, vol. 16, no. 2 (April 1951/1952), pp. 56-58. Corrects Read and Dalton's earlier account of how the enamel recesses were cut. - [4] British Museum Investigation, 'Investigation of the rouge clair glass on the Royal Gold Cup', cited in the museum's own bibliography for object 1892,0501.1. - [5] Wikipedia (French), 'Coupe de sainte Agnes'. Tertiary synthesis largely consistent with the English-language article and the British Museum's own record; used here principally for the detail of the 1435 Beaufort inventory entry, the misidentification of the subject as Saint Susanna, and the deed of gift restricting the convent's sale of the cup. - [6] Search-derived summary of published accounts of the Goldenes Rossl (Altotting), including its 1404 manufacture in the Parisian court workshops and its gift from Isabeau of Bavaria to Charles VI on 1 January 1405; flagged for replacement with a dedicated Goldenes Rossl catalogue or museum publication. - [7] Buettner, Brigitte. 'Past Presents: New Year's Gifts at the Valois Courts, ca. 1400.' The Art Bulletin, vol. 83, no. 4 (2001), p. 598. Cited in the Wikipedia bibliography for the Royal Gold Cup for the etrennes gift culture at the Valois court. - [8] Lightbown, Ronald W. Secular Goldsmiths' Work in Medieval France: A History. Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London, vol. XXXVI, 1978, pp. 75-82. - [9] Search-derived summary reporting that Charles V of France, born 21 January 1338 (the feast of Saint Agnes), commissioned at least a dozen depictions of the saint during his reign; flagged as a claim requiring verification against Stratford 2022 or a dedicated study of Charles V's devotional patronage. - [10] Stratford, Neil. La Coupe de sainte Agnes (France-Espagne-Angleterre). Paris, Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 2022, 176 pp., 127 illustrations. The most recent dedicated scholarly monograph on the object; not read in full for this record, cited via published reviews and booksellers' descriptions. - [11] Schroder, Timothy, and Thornton, Dora (eds). A Royal Renaissance Treasure and its Afterlives: The Royal Clock Salt. British Museum Research Publication 227. London, British Museum Press, 2021. Discusses the Royal Gold Cup as a comparandum on pp. 2-4; the book's primary subject is a different object, the Royal Clock Salt at Goldsmiths' Hall. - [12] Dalton, Ormonde M. The Royal Gold Cup in the British Museum. London, British Museum, 1924. The founding monograph on the object; not read in full for this record, cited via the British Museum's own bibliography and Wikipedia. - [13] Wikimedia Commons API metadata (action=query, prop=imageinfo, iiprop=extmetadata) for the six image files used in this record, confirming CC0 licensing and photographer credit to Commons user Vassil, and for the file 'Medina de Pomar - Monasterio de Santa Clara 01.jpg' confirming CC0 licensing to Commons user Zarateman for the convent building (not used as a plate in this record). --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.