AN IMPORTANT ELIZABETH I PARCEL-GILT SILVER TANKARD

LONDON, 1587, MAKER'S MARK CB IN MONOGRAM (JACKSON REV. ED., P. 100, LINE 9)

Details

AN IMPORTANT ELIZABETH I PARCEL-GILT SILVER TANKARD
London, 1587, Maker's Mark CB in monogram (Jackson rev. ed., p. 100, line 9)
Tapering cylindrical, on a circular foot chased with strapwork and fruit, the body with two ovolo mid-bands and vertically divided by six silver-gilt pales of chased strapwork alternating with plain silver pales, the scroll handle part-gilt and engraved with arabesques, the thumbpiece formed as a winged mermaid, the domed cover with similar chasing and rim molding, surmounted by a turned finial, the base engraved The Gift of M.W. to C.C. Junr., fully marked under base and on cover
7 in. (19.05 cm.) high; 18 oz. 10 dwt. (578 gr.)

Provenance

Major Sir John Willoughby, Bt., Christie's, London, January 29, 1918, lot 53
The Rt. Hon. Lord Rochdale, Christie's, London, May 5, 1937, lot 122
Collection of Richard C. Paine, Boston
Collection of Arthur Houghton, Jr., Wye Plantation, Maryland, 1977
S.J. Shrubsole

Exhibited

Daily Telegraph Exhibition, 1928, 5-64
Queen Charlotte's Loan Exhibition of Old Silver, London, 1929, no. 57, pl. XXXVII

Lot Essay

Philippa Glanville, in Silver in Tudor and Early Stuart England, notes that tankards were introduced in the 1540s and were common in court and gentry circles by the 1560s. They served as personal drinking vessels for both men and women. Inventories confirm that tankards were listed singly or in twos; even the extensive 1574 royal inventory listed only four tankards.

Tudor tankards of tapering body with horizontal ribs or bars are derived from wooden, barrel-shaped, "water tankard" prototypes. The use of alternating white and gilt pales on this tankard is also evocative of a wooden prototype. The abundance of ornament employed in all-over patterns was another characteristic of English silver of the period, as was marine iconography, exemplified here by the mermaid thumbpiece. (Philippa Glanville, Silver in Tudor and Early Stuart England, 1990, 154, 259-66 and "Tudor Drinking Vessels," Burlington Magazine Supplement, September 1985, p. 22.)