(Marks illustrated [p. 395].)
(By courtesy of Messrs. Crichton Brothers.)
The examples of wine cups illustrated on [page 129] show two forms. One is taller than the other, and they stand as the great prototypes in solid silver of our modern wine glasses. Indeed, there is nothing to indicate that they are of silver in the illustration, save the dark surface of the bowl. It is pleasant to be able to give a Charles I piece dated 1631. The maker of this is William Shute. This belongs to the earlier period of the reign of Charles I, when the shadows were deepening. It is a delicately balanced cup with slender stem and finely proportioned baluster ornament. The marks are illustrated [page 361]. The other cup is of the Charles II period, and the marks are shown beneath, the maker’s being P. D. and the date letter being
for 1665, an eventful year. The Plague of London was now at its height. The first Dutch war commenced, and in June the Dutch were defeated under Van Tromp at Lowestoft.
The adjacent illustration ([page 129]) shows other contemporary metal work. Here is a brass candlestick of the middle seventeenth century. The baluster ornament is common to the silver cup and to the brass candlestick. No two of these candlesticks are alike, the baluster ornament varying according to the individual mood of the maker. It is the same factor which predominates in Jacobean furniture with turned rails with varying ornaments. The chain is complete. The silversmith, the brass-worker, the woodcarver, and the glassblower each found, according to his technique, this style of ornament pleasing to his mind. Accordingly the collector who comes after may see for himself the influence each has had on the other. The student may see in the established form of the stem of the modern wine glass something tempting him to linger over the process of evolution.
The Punch-bowl
Artists and writers have made the punch-bowl of the eighteenth century familiar. The china collector well knows that it was not always of silver. The amateur collector is always to the fore with his punch-ladle with silver bowl and ebony handle, and the said ladle must always have a coin of the period soldered at the bottom of the bowl to denote its genuineness. Alas! so few of these are authentic. The coin, which among other things should be the stamp of veracity, does not agree with the hall-marks—and one lie in a piece damns it in its entirety. It is a sad story, but punch-ladles seem to be the first step in obliquity of the faker. They are easy to make, and apparently easy to palm off on the young collector. There are hundreds of people who have a punch-ladle with a history—not the real history—but they have not a punch-bowl. It is like having a bridle without a horse.
