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Lot Essay
While the maker's mark on the present wine-cup is recorded by Ian Pickford in Jackson’s Goldsmiths and Their Mark, Woodbridge, 1989, p. 109, line 21, the maker who used it was not identified either there or in the more recent work by Dr David Mitchell, Silversmiths in Elizabethan and Stuart London Their Marks and Their Lives, Woodbridge, 2017. The use of a device without corresponding initials makes an attribution difficult, if not impossible. One possibility is that the maker was a stranger goldsmith, possibly from the Low Countries where a device without initials was more commonly used as a mark. Stranger goldsmiths could be sworn to the Ordinance of the Goldsmiths' Company upon the presentation of testimonial letters confirming that they were a goldsmith and honest. Given the relatively large number of device marks which are recorded by Pickford as being registered at the Goldsmiths’ Company in London in the late 16th century, it would seem unlikely, however, that the marks were used exclusively by stranger goldsmiths.
Nonetheless it would seem that this mark belonged to a well-established silversmith who produced high quality plate, possibly from as early as 1591, the date of a tankard formerly in the Swaythling collection (sold Christie’s, London, 6 May 1924, lot 108) with maker’s mark described as a ‘double headed eagle displayed’. While the mark is also recorded on an inkstand (sold Christie’s, London, 7 July 1909, lot 40) and a standing salt (C.J. Jackson, An Illustrated History of English Plate, London, 1911, p. 555, pl. 765) it would seem that wine-cups such as the present example were a particular speciality, with examples recorded from 1612 and 1614 as well as another smaller example from the same year as the present wine-cup.
Nonetheless it would seem that this mark belonged to a well-established silversmith who produced high quality plate, possibly from as early as 1591, the date of a tankard formerly in the Swaythling collection (sold Christie’s, London, 6 May 1924, lot 108) with maker’s mark described as a ‘double headed eagle displayed’. While the mark is also recorded on an inkstand (sold Christie’s, London, 7 July 1909, lot 40) and a standing salt (C.J. Jackson, An Illustrated History of English Plate, London, 1911, p. 555, pl. 765) it would seem that wine-cups such as the present example were a particular speciality, with examples recorded from 1612 and 1614 as well as another smaller example from the same year as the present wine-cup.