The Theocritus Cup

Sculptor John Flaxman designed the ‘Theocritus’ cup in the ‘neo-classical’ style, inspired by the art of ancient Rome and Greece. His designs were based on a description of a cup in a Greek poem, written by Theocritus over two thousand years before. Paul Storr made the cup from Flaxman’s drawings in 1811 for the London firm of Rundell, Bridge and Rundell. Storr was the outstanding English silversmith of his day and this stunning work shows the reason why. The silver-gilt cup is shaped like the one described in the ancient Greek poem. The poem also describes three scenes, exactly as we see here on the Cup. On one side we see a beautiful young woman, with two admirers competing for her love. The other side shows a fisherman hauling his net and a young boy making a basket while foxes steal his food. In 1811, the Corporation of Liverpool presented the Theocritus Cup to merchant Thomas Earle, former Mayor of Liverpool. The Cup is inscribed and engraved with his coat of arms and those of the town. It was a magnificent and costly gift, rewarding a man deeply involved for years with the transatlantic slave trade.