Beschreibung:

HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT: a 17th century Irish silver mounted twin-handled coconut cupunmarked
Of traditional form, the coconut encased by silver strapwork attached with rivets top and bottom, creating four individually carved sections, two with armorials, one bearing a warrior riding his horse and the last showing possibly the birth of Venus, each vista surrounded by carved foliage and scrolls, the upper rim surmounted by a polished collar with scalloped fringing engraved with vertical fine lines, and on either side of the body a c-scroll handle, all raised on a circular pedestal foot, diameter handle to handle 18cm.FootnotesThis rare piece is significant for its association with the Lords of Kilkenny, and their part in the founding of the Irish Clan system.
The presentation of the armorials indicates arms engraved in the seventeenth century or before, and the lack of assay relating to the silver plaques also suggests an early date.
The blazon of the first armorial: gules, three covered cups or (Butler) – impaling – gules, three swords fessways in pale argent with pommels and hilts or, the centre to sinister and outer to dexter (O'Shee/O'Shea)
The blazon of the second armorial: (Butler) with a crescent for difference
The crest, which is part of the second armorial: a boar's head couped proper (Butler)
The BUTLER family are an ancient family who developed land holdings in Ireland after the Norman conquest. Notably as Viscounts Mountgarret and Earls Ormond - they were Lords of Kilkenny. In this period the O'SHEE (variously SHEE and O'SHEA) family were identified as one of the ten Civic families of Kilkenny, a position that involved them in the admiration of that district. There are a number of unions between the two families, but it has been possible to identify one that appears to relate to this piece specifically.
The impaled arms are for Richard BUTLER (died 1706) 5th Viscount of Mountgarret of North and East Kilkenny, in the peerage of Ireland and his second wife Margaret SHEE daughter of Richard SHEE Esquire of Shee's Court, Kilkenny. They married after 1682. The 5th Viscount was the son of Edmund BUTLER (1595-1679) 4th Viscount by his first wife (married 1630) Dorothy T(O)CHET (died 1635) daughter of Mervyn T(O)CHET Earl of Castlehaven.
The single arms refers to the Viscounts Mountgarret, descended from a second son of the BUTLER family (the first son having inherited the title Earl Of Ormond). The inclusion of the arms here is likely to relate to Richard BUTLER, later 5th Viscount before his marriage to Margaret O'SHEE or more likely the earlier BUTLER line of Viscount Mountgarret.
The BUTLER family were fierce Roman Catholics who forfeited many of their lands during the unsettled period of the Stuarts and the Commonwealth. As a result of his beliefs the 5th Viscount was imprisoned for a time at Liverpool but did find favour during the reign of James II, who he supported in battles in Ireland. He was known to be a soldier and politician.