It is thought to have been made for Augustus the Strong, then passed to Hermann Werner Franz Gottlob von der Asseburg, ancestor of the vendor.
The goblet was purchased by London dealer Rainer Zietz who said last week that he had bought it for stock and was delighted to have acquired the piece, describing it as “a glass of really royal splendour”.
Glass was the strong suit in Sotheby’s June 20 sale of ceramics
UK: LEADING the auction at £100,000 (plus premium) was this 27in (68.5cm) high early 18th century, two-section Saxon covered goblet from Dresden which is applied with 12 silver-gilt oval medallions of Roman emperors and was discovered in a cellar at Schloss Hinnenburg, in northern Germany.