tray
- Museum number
- AF.3056
- Description
-
Circular silver tray with moulded edge, engraved with radiating design of fantastic Chinese figures and birds; space within these stippled. Central circle with shield of arms added later, 'chevron engrailed between three owls'; crest, an owl with expanded wings on cap of maintenance. Pricked on back with initials and date Stamped with maker's mark, date-letter and hallmark.
- Production date
- 1685-1686
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 30.70 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
-
-
-
-
- Curator's comments
- Text from Read and Tonnochy 1928, 'Catalogue of Silver Plate' (Franks Bequest):
Jackson, 'English Goldsmiths etc', p. 144 (1687-8), quotes this maker's mark on a tankard (Messrs. Christie) and a communion-cup (Thrybergh, Yorks.). Date-letter, 'ibid.', p. 84 (1685-6). The arms are those of Nicholas (London, and Ashton-Keynes and Roundway, Co. Wilts.). Engraved ornament in the Chinese manner came into favour in the last years of Charles II's reign, and is seen on several kinds of plate, the subjects being apparently taken from the Chinese porcelain and lacquer which were then being imported into England. Porringers resembling 1917,10-05,2 are not uncommon. Examples in the Pierpont Morgan Collection are described and illustrated in the Catalogue of Silver Plate in that collection by E. Alfred Jones, London, 1908, pl. xxviii. A similar porringer and a tray of 1682 and 1688 respectively were exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club ('B.F.A.', pi. ciii, fig. 1). Porringers of 1685 are figured in Starkie Gardner, 'Old Silver-Work', pl. lxx, fig. 2, and W. W. Watts, 'Old English Silver', pl. 51B. London, 1924. Among other forms of plate with this decoration may be mentioned a standing cup of 1684 exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club ('Catalogue', as above, pl. cxiii), belonging to St. John's College, Cambridge; a tankard of 1683 in the collection of Sir C. J. Jackson (Jackson, 'English Plate', II, fig. 993); and objects belonging to a toilet-set from the Swaythling Collection (Starkie Gardner, as above, pl. cxx).
- Location
- On display (G46/dc15)
- Acquisition date
- 1897
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- AF.3056