LONDON, 1675, MAKER'S MARK D OR ID IN SCRIPT MONOGRAM, POSSIBLY FOR ISAAC DIGHTON

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).