1949.114.1.A-E: Nest of Four Beakers with Cover

Identification and Creation

Object Number

1949.114.1.A-E

People

Maker's mark B within four pellets in an upright rectangular punch with canted corners, British, English

Title

Nest of Four Beakers with Cover

Classification

Vessels

Work Type

vessel

Date

1664-1665

Places

Creation Place: Europe, United Kingdom, England, London

Period

Charles II (1660-1685)

Culture

British

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/228931

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Silver

Dimensions

when assembled: 26.6 × 8.6 cm (10 1/2 × 3 3/8 in.)
961 g

Inscriptions and Marks

• maker's mark: struck under bases : B [within four pellets in an upright rectangular punch with canted corners] [mark not in Jackson]
• coat of arms: on sides of cups, engraved: Tufton impaling Boyle
• maker's mark: struck on interior of cover: B [within four pellets in an upright rectangular punch with canted corners] [mark not in Jackson]
• hallmark: struck under bases: lion passant, leopard's head, date letter
• hallmark: struck on interior of cover: lion passant, leopard's head, date letter
• inscription: front of the largest beaker, scratch weight engraved: 30 = 18 = ½

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Nicolas Tufton, 3rd Earl of Thanet (1631-1679) and Elizabeth, née Boyle [1], London. Miss Coats of Fergusite House sold [through her sale, Christie's, London, May 6, 1903, lot 67]; to Mallett. J. C. Butterwick, sold [through Sotheby's, London, May 30, 1935, lot 164. William Randolph Hearst, London, sold [through Sotheby's, London, November 17, 1937, lot 83. Archibald Alexander Hutchinson, New York, bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1949.

[1] Nicolas Tufton, 3rd Earl of Thanet married Elizabeth, second daughter of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Burlington on April 11, 1661 and succeeded to the earldom on May 7, 1664.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Archibald A. Hutchinson, Esq.

Accession Year

1949

Object Number

1949.114.1.A-E

Division

European and American Art

Contact

am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu

Permissions

The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.

Descriptions

Description

Each beaker of slightly tapering cylindrical form applied at the shoulder with a band of reeding; three on cast spreading bases, the largest of stepped domed form with multi-baluster finial rising from a cast flat fluted calyx; all engraved with a coat of arms and Earl's coronet within a crossed plume mantling, the cover engraved with a crest and Earl's coronet, the front of the largest beaker with scratch weight 30=18=1/2.

The arms are those of Tufton impaling those of Boyle, for Nicholas Tufton, 3rd Earl of Thanel, born in 1631, who was married and succeeded to the Earldom in the year this nest of beakers was made. His father, the 2nd Earl, was a staunch Royalist and in April, 1643 he escaped to France, taking his son with him. He returned the following year and thereafter "submitted willingly to Government". His son appears to have stayed on the Continent but he is recorded as staying with his grandmother, Lady Anne Clifford, at Skipton Castle in 1650. After this, he travelled "in Italy to Rome and to other places abroad". While his father appears to have made his peace with the Parliamentary side, his son was imprisoned in the Tower in 1655 and again in September 1656 to June 1658 on suspicion of being involved in Royalist plots.

He married Elizabeth Boyle, 2nd daughter of Richard, 1st Earl of Burlington. His town house, Thanet House, escaped the Great Fire of London in 1666. Lady Thanet wrote to her mother on September 12, "the nearest that it came to my house was Surgeon's Hall on the backside my garden, which is burnt down to the ground."The 3rd Earl died in 1679 but his widow lived to the age of 88 and died in 1725. (See "Complete Peerage")

Each beaker of slightly tapering cylindrical form applied at the shoulder with a banc of reeding; three on cast spreading bases, the largest of stepped domed form with multi-baluster finial rising from a cast flat fluted calyx; all engraved with a coat of arms and Earl's coronet within a crossed plume mantling, the cover engraved with a crest and Earl's coronet, the front of the largest beaker with scratch weight 30=18=1/2

Publication History

• K. C. Buhler, French, English and American Silver: A Loan Exhibition in Honor of Russell A. Plimpton, exh. cat., Minneapolis Society of the Arts (Minneapolis, MN, 1956), p. 63 (text), p.37, no. 25 (ill. in b/w)
• Charles Oman, Caroline Silver 1625-1688, Faber & Faber (London) (London, 1970), p. 43, plate 23A (ill. in b/w)
• Michael Clayton, The Collector's Dictionary of the Silver and Gold of Great Britain and North America, Country Life (London, 1971), pp. 21, 26, plate 26 (ill. in b/w)
• Christopher Hartop, British and Irish Silver in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums/Yale University Press (Cambridge, Mass. and New Haven, 2007), pp. 49-51, cat. no. 18, repr. in b/w on pp. 49-50; repr. in color on jacket front.
• Timothy Schroder, British and Continental Gold and Silver in the Ashmolean Museum, exh. cat., Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology (Oxford, UK, 2009), p. 222, note 2

Exhibition History

• French, English and American Silver: A Loan Exhibition in Honor of Russell A. Plimpton, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 06/09/1956 - 07/15/1956
• 32Q: 2340 Cabinet Gallery, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 09/24/2019

Subjects and Contexts

• Google Art Project

Verification Level