EUROPEAN, PROBABLY LATE 16TH OR 17TH CENTURY

The present lot could be by the same hand as a bowl believed by Christopher Peal to be Anglo-Saxon. In his book, British Pewter, 1971, he describes his bowl as 'possibly one of the earliest entire pieces of purely British pewter. A font bowl bearing late Anglo-Saxon decoration carried out in their technique' (fig, 20 p.83). The Peal bowl is now in the V & A Museum catalogued by Anthony North as 'Western European, about 1600.' Pewter at the V & A, No 46. p.71. He considers the design to be a debased Islamic design originating from Veneto-Saracenic wares of the sixteenth century. He says that in the past the bowl was considered to be Anglo-Saxon or Scottish.