LONDON, 1682, MAKER'S MARK D OR ID IN SCRIPT MONOGRAM, POSSIBLY FOR ISAAC DIGHTON

Details

A CHARLES II SILVER CASKET INKSTAND
LONDON, 1682, MAKER'S MARK D OR ID IN SCRIPT MONOGRAM, POSSIBLY FOR ISAAC DIGHTON
Rectangular, with cut-corners, the hinged stepped domed cover flat-chased with Chinoiserie figures in a landscape, within a leaf-tip border, the sides with exotic birds in flight amongst foliage, raised on four openwork supports cast as scrolls, the cover opening to reveal four compartments, with removable inkwell and sanding pot both of angular form with cut-corners, marked inside base and inside cover, the inkwell and sander with maker's mark only under bases, the covers apparently unmarked, scratch weight 75 g and 25640
10 ¾ in. (27.3 cm.) long
76 dwt. 16 dwt. (2,389 gr.)

Provenance

Anonymous sale [Charles Haggins, Valuer and Art Dealer, 3 Bury Street, St James's, London]; Christie's, London, 13 July 1926, lot 110 (£527 to Willson).
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 31 March 1971, lot 147.
Dr John Constable (1927-2016), Massachusetts and then by descent.

Literature

D. Mitchell, Silversmiths in Elizabethan and Stuart London Their Marks and Their Lives, Woodbridge, 2017, p. 265 (where the present inkstand is recorded).

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Lot Essay

The mark, recorded by I. Pickford (Jackson’s Goldsmiths and Their Marks, Woodbridge, 1989) on page 139, line 1, was attributed to by Gerald Taylor to Isaac Dighton. Dr David Mitchell, in his new work Silversmiths in Elizabethan and Stuart London Their Marks and Their Lives, Woodbridge, 2017, pp. 265-267, having considered the possible candidates concurs with this attribution. Dighton was the son of Henry Dighton of Bristol and apprenticed to William Browne. He became free in 1672. Like the present inkstand his work seems to have been of high quality and wrought in the latest fashion. Many other pieces of plate by him which are also flat chased with Chinoiserie are known, for example a snuffer stand which is accompanied by a pair of snuffers which were made by Dighton's master William Brown (Mitchell, op. cit., p. 266, fig. 147).

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