16TH/17TH CENTURY, APPARENTLY UNMARKED, FIVE STRUCK WITH LATER AUSTRIAN CONTROL MARKS

Details

A SET OF TWELVE SWISS OR GERMAN PARCEL-GILT MOUNTED BOXWOOD APOSTLE SPOONS
16th/17th Century, apparently unmarked, five struck with later Austrian control marks
With carved wooden bowls and tubular stem surmounted by gilt apostle figures, comprising the Master, Saint James the Greater, Saint Paul, Saint Jude, Saint Bartholomew, Saint Andrew, Saint James the Less, Saint Simon Zelotes, Saint Philip, Saint John the Evangelist, Saint Peter and Saint Thomas, five struck with later Austrian control marks on stem
each 6¼ in. (16 cm.) long (12)

Provenance

Sir Julius Wernher, 1st Bt. (1850-1912), Bath House, London, in the Grand Hall, by whom bequeathed, with a life interest to his widow, Alice, Lady Wernher, subsequently Lady Ludlow (1862-1945), to their son
Sir Harold Wernher, 3rd Bt., G.C.V.O. (1893-1973), Bath House, London, and from 1948, Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire, and by descent.

Literature

1913 Luton Hoo Inventory, p. 26, no. 106, in the Grand Hall, 'in cabinet'.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

A group of ten boxwood spoons with bowls of similar form to those on the present set formed part of the Amerbach-Kabinett and are dated to circa 1550 (F. Ackermann, Sammeln in der Renaissance Das Amerbach-Kabinett, Basel, 1991, p. 77, no. 58). A set of Swiss seventeenth-century casting moulds for apostle finials of very similar type to the present example are also recorded (E.M. Lösel, Zürcher Goldschmiede Kunst, Zurich, 1983, p. 396, fig. 171). However the form was also used by German silversmiths of the period.

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