The Edith & Stuart Cary Welch Collection

A James I silver spice or sugar box, probably Balthasar Trimson, London, 1609

VAT reduced rateUK: Greenford Park Warehouse

Auction Closed

October 25, 12:38 PM GMT

Estimate

30,000 - 50,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

The lid modelled and chased as a scallop shell, with an ovolo border, on four snail feet, the front with latch, the back pricked with early initials 'EL / AC',

length 15.5cm. (16 1/4in.)

436gr., 14oz.

S.J. Shrubsole, New York, 1974
Hahn family collection, sold
Christie's, New York, 23 October 2000, lot 302
Charles L. Poor Collection, sold
Sotheby's, New York, 26 October 2005, lot 136
N. & I. Franklin, London, 17 July 2007

New York: S.J. Shrubsole, 'Fifty Years on 57th Street', 1986

Rita Reif, 'Silver to Which Age Adds Luster', The New York Times, 27 April 27, 1986

Balthasar Trimson was a known maker of spice boxes, and it is interesting to note that records indicate that he had a spice box broken in 1609 (the same date as the current lot) as it tested below the English silver standard (David M. Mitchell, Silversmiths in Elizabethan And Stuart London, 2017, p.248).

A similar shell form spice box on snail feet, by the same maker three years later (1612) was in the collection of Mrs. Winston F.C. Guest (sold Sotheby's, New York, 17 June 1981, lot 55); this is probably the one of the same maker and date sold at Christie's London, 30 June 1954, lot 159.

Other examples, with maker's mark TI (probably for Thomas Jempson), are in the Huntington Library, San Marino (1613) and formerly in the collection of Albert Emanuel II, Palm Beach (sold Sotheby's, New York, 27 April, 1973, lot 163), Another example, on scallop shell rather than snail feet, is in the Untermyer Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.