A WILLIAM AND MARY OBLONG SILVER-MOUNTED SHAGREEN INSTRUMENT CASE, with shallow drawer and narrow silver borders, the elaborate hinges and lock plate engraved with stylised flowers and pierced with kidney-shaped motifs, the slightly raised cover with applied oval plaque engraved with the arms of the Barber Surgeons' Company and with the initials ME and dated 1695, circa 1695, the mounts unmarked, the interior inscribed indistinctly in ink "This Box with Instruments Bought June 9th, 1695"

细节

A WILLIAM AND MARY OBLONG SILVER-MOUNTED SHAGREEN INSTRUMENT CASE, with shallow drawer and narrow silver borders, the elaborate hinges and lock plate engraved with stylised flowers and pierced with kidney-shaped motifs, the slightly raised cover with applied oval plaque engraved with the arms of the Barber Surgeons' Company and with the initials ME and dated 1695, circa 1695, the mounts unmarked, the interior inscribed indistinctly in ink "This Box with Instruments Bought June 9th, 1695"

拍品专文

For a similar instrument case, see Eric Delieb, Silver Boxes, 1968, page 31.

Without doubt the most important instrument case to have survived is that applied with the enamelled coat-of-arms of King Henry VIII, now in the collection of The Worshipful Company of Barbers, and given to them by the King, probably in 1512. The case also bears the arms of the Barbers Company and below it the badge of the Fellowship of Surgeons. During the reign of Henry VIII the two were incorporated becoming the Barber-Surgeons' Company in 1540.

A similar instrument case to the present shagreen example, also engraved with the Barber-Surgeon's Arms and with the initials IK, possibly for John Knight, sergeant-surgeon to King Charles II in 1661, is also in the collection of The Worshipful Company of Barbers