A lobed silver cup with a plain bowl, the stem formed from cast bracket scrolls with lions' heads, on a domed foot embossed with cartouche-shaped masks. In the centre of the bowl is a chased dome, with a hinged lid, through which, when the bowl is filled with liquid, emerges a small cast figure of a putto holding a tankard, mounted on a sphere. The dome may be screwed off.

These cups were typically produced in the seventeenth century in the provinces of Holland, Zeeland and Friesland in the Netherlands to announce the forthcoming birth of a child. Known as 'Hansje in de kelder' or 'Hans in the cellar' cups, when filled with liquid a small figure of a baby would emerge in the centre of the bowl from a bulb in the stem.

By the eighteenth century such vessels were more usually produced in glass and the ritual had largely died out in the Netherlands by the nineteenth century. However a revival in the making of these traditional cups was known, particularly in Hanau.

Tazza struck with duty mark and maker's mark, ZDR; cover of bulb and foot struck with duty mark used 1853-93; struck with another unidentified mark; scratch mark on base, o / N / t.