Description
The Kiddush cup is the goblet used for the blessing (kiddush) recited over wine at the onset of Shabbat and the festivals, sanctifying the day. With or without a stem, it belongs at once to the realm of table silverware and that of domestic ritual objects. In Central Europe, in the Bohemian and Austrian regions, these silver cups are frequently engraved with Hebrew liturgical inscriptions and decorated with vine and scroll motifs on a repoussé body, sometimes gilded on the interior. Their fabrication, subject to the oversight of goldsmiths' guilds, follows the forms of local secular silverware while adding to them the texts of the blessing.
