Telling stories populated with mythological creatures—like those engraved on the base of this beaker—was a favorite pastime at social gatherings. Parts of Transylvania, the home of Wallachian Prince Vlad III the Impaler (1431–1476/77), the inspiration for Bram Stocker’s Count Dracula, were allegedly inhabited by dragons and other highly dangerous creatures, among them wyverns and liver-eating eagles thought to hide and hunt among the precipices of the Balkan and Carpathian mountains.

Literature
Tihamér Gyárfás. A brassai ötvösség története. Brassó, 1912, p. 103, no. 149.
Important English and Continental Silver and Objects of Vertu. Sale cat., Christie’s, London, October 22, 1986, p. 29, no. 104.
Judit H. Kolba. Hungarian Silver: The Nicolas M. Salgo Collection. London, 1996, p. 41, no. 19.

References
Elemér Kőszeghy. Magyarországi ötvösjegyek a középkortól 1867-ig / Merkzeichen der Goldschmiede Ungarns vom Mittelalter bis 1867. Budapest, 1936, no. 192 [maker’s mark].

[Wolfram Koeppe 2015]