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BY J.RW. JENNINGS " , , " "1 ' .1', ; I Three lots which appeared in Sotheby's ! , ~ 1 I I ;i ' . , ~ , July 25 sale - a rare Scottish pear-shaped ' SI,! I' , ha/f-ga/lon measure, 10r, inches high , 3),F, _ ' (left), which made £400; a 7-inch William ank -L. dI " i, and Mary tankard, c. 1790, with the t : i ' maker's mark "I.B." (£250); and a good " I flat-lidded flagon by "W.W", c. 1690 (£540). A world record was created at

" this sale when an important Charles 11 :'; Commonwealth charger made an not easy to get astonishing £5,800. , ,I i ,. valuation here nonsense. They would be : ! out of date before the printing presses " ," ,had stop'ped rolling . hold of . , " Perhaps the easiest - if not the fairest " i : : or most accurate - method of indiCating ,I' the tremend,ous increase in popularity of HE END is easily foretold; ' . I~ ;I '" pewter is " to examine the auction ' I , . When every single t.hing you hold ": ",' catalogues. ' For example, the highest bid " fl '; 'I for a pewter tankard at Christie's ... <= Is made of silver or of gold, .' R " . I : November 1971 sale was 180 guineas, bid You long for simple pewter. " 'I;' :. in fact for a. lot of two pieces. In their : ·'1( ! I· most recent sale at · the time of writing, PEWTER today, however, is far less substantially I cheaper to buy modern i " 450 guineas was bid for a' single flagon - "simple" than it was when W.S. Gilbert silver; ~or the price of antique pewter has : ". and while in all fairness it must be penned the lyrics for The Gondoliers. soared 'over the last couple of years, and :, admitted that it , was a vastly superior Good antique pewter is in short supply, current variations and f1uctuations , in : ;' piece, ' more comparable lots, ' but and not infrequently it would be price '" would make ' any, ' attempt ' at )':: individual measures, went for 380 guineas . I.: " ; I and 320 guineas respectively. ; I,: r,' !' ' Three factors have contributed to this increase in popularity. The first is, of :.. ,"i! I l'1\ " ,' I f' course" the desire of anyone with a few , . ',! to save to try to invest them in I I' " J i ~ "I I " I ' n t: something solid,' which will rise in value 1 ' , \ 1 ' sufficiently to keep pace with galloping . , i' :: ,inflation, They ' have chosen pewter - ,.' ;. AI,' superb pai;! pf :' among other things - as it appears . Charles ' I flagons ", steadier than, for example, silver did last : .stamped with!j the ' I , time when so many people hitched their ,'mark of the maker !' wagons to the cast candlestick star and "~E.G." They measUre : : found that in the long tun it was an 9 'inches to their lip t,;' earth-bound meteor. . '. and, date from 1635 I i The second factjJr is the r~turn to , about the ·time "tfJat I \' favour of old oak furniture. Pewter looks , pewterers began using : right with it. If you don't believe me, , "ha/lmarks'~. The pair " take any black oak sideboard or dresser. , weni' " , secured t; at ' ,. 'Try a couple of 'Pieces of silver on it. No! , S d t.h e by's 'I alst ,: ; : Well how about a pair of churel' , October for £820: ' I ' candlesticks the type with the deer " , Art & Antiques, August 25, 1973 ~i I , '. , " , ',1 ; \ : I,' • ,,-, Ill'; " , I , , \11. '\., ~ ,.' ~, ',:,l 27 ',' hollow foot, designed to accommodate a pewter, rather " 'than ', risk losing the bell dapper so that the priest using bell, replacements the next ' time the King book and candle for exorcism (or came to dinner. ,' It was" however, some excommunication) needed only two years before the merry monarch ascended hands. Yes, it looks better, but now try a the throne, about 1635 ,m fact, ,that pewter paten and a couple of tankards. pewterers began to use marks, in addition Now you See what I mean. to their own' touchmarks, which The third factor is quite simply that resembled silver : hallmarks .'''': causing people have begun to rediscover the thereby much ' wrath and ' no little 'beauty of pewter itself. Pewter is a litigation on ' the ,part of the Goldsmiths' delightfully warm, friendly . If Company. "', champagne should always be drunk from Tankards, flagons and similar items a silver tankard, then beer should be are, however, ' datable by shape, ' any drunk from a pewter one, ideally with a markings providing confirmation and glass bottom, so you can see if any enemy additional infotnlation: As a matter of comes through the door while you are fact, the touciiplates' recording ,' the drinking; or, as another version has it, so touchmarks of pewterers before 1666 that if the recruiting sergeant or the were lost ID the:Great Fire of London of press-gang leader drops the monarch's that year. ' ,:.'.. ' .: shilling into your mug you will spot it The earliest,' tankardS were -squat, ' before you ,finish your beer and will not straight-sided, and 'tapered 'upwards, with find yourself an unwilling conscript. fla t lids, usuiilly ' hinged with omametJ. tal The first English pewter is th u mbpieces; ." although . ~ven . more Romano-British and dates back as far as desirable pieces; were made at the same the year 400 H.C. Then suddenly, for no time with cylindrical instead of tapered apparent reason, this delightful alloy, form. Towards ' the . end of ' the . 17th comprising 90 per cent Cornish tin and century, lidless tankards ' also ptit in an 10 per cent , or antimony, fell appearance, designed · for 'ale-houses, and out of favour and did not make its many of those which survive 'today carry re-appearance until the 14th century. engraved on the body . the name .of, th~ , 11 I .; ,,; j ~ t .: Pewter tankards started to put in an hostelry they ,adorned., I A 'wine flagon ("Kelchkanne") by Jacob appearance during the 16th century. A century. later an American living in Vslin of. Geneva, the collar surmounted Charles 11, as one of his many methods London recorded ;that it, was p6ssible to by if heart-shaped cover with a twin-acorn of acquiring wealth without recourse to send to the pubfor beet; which ,would be thumbpiece. ' This mid-17th century piece Parliament, took to annexing the silver of brought by ' ' the servant ': of , .'the (height : 9% inches) changd hands at "tap-house;', coinplete with pewter mugs his nobles, who tended to replace it with P~/lfips i 0(l ,June 19 for £200. " , ' ;1 ',1 I i,1 I ,~" : l ' b~aring i the owner's name, and that each ,,'. ~ morning the same servant would go from house , to house collecting the mugs, N wHich he strung on a leather · strap for ':1 easerof transport. . .. ! i: Ret~rnitJ.g, however, . to ·the earliest tankards,:. the flat covers' were often ~rrlbellished with saw-tooth serrations at thl : front, and when the domed cover cain~ into vogue at about ' 1690, this 'prattice was continued, . and remained llntil the beginning of the second decade of:the li8:th century . . : 11About . the time that these serrations fell .froin: favour; the plain drum of the ta~~ard : ' gained the embellishment of a f'i~let mpulding llb6ut two thirds down its · body" and this orriamentation remained : }vlie~, ~ f around 1725, the strai~t-sided tankard' began to be 'replaced in public favour by the bell and tulip shapes. ) : [; Thes~ : shapes were espeCially popular in;·! the \ West ' of England, and Howard • tb:tterell's Old Pewter, Its ' Makers and Mdrks (illiblished by·Batsford; London, in i929 and reprinted in i963), which has been . regarded as ' the ' pewter-collector's

", I \ "! : t · Biole · for: the last 44 years, ' remarks that ~n ; peri ;cent , of early tulip ' tankards A 10'l.-inch cylindricallidaed flagon with scroll handle and open-shapeithumb piece ",,~ rtlined by the author ' bore the and domed cover, bearing the rubbed touch-mark on the of 'dates hand/~ ';G .. ~ E.. ;". 'it totich~n1arks or' pewterers ,from either from the first half of the 17th cen tury and made 450 gns at Christie's .on July 119, The Bi~stol or Exeter. ' bulbous shape of the measure next to it suggests its 18th-century ,date; this item, , 1 : .It . did not take long for these new which went for 170 gns in the same sale, bears the touch of a 'rose With'H" RITT(?) shapes to catch on, imd , although the ROOSTlN 1719" above it. It is probably German, " <' ' , domed lid fell out of use at about· 1775, I, it, I· ) ~l ;' ' Art & Antiques, August,25, 1973 , , .,1 \. ,I" I I '.,1 , J. ,. t':, ' '/ ::.: '.~ I I " ! "j. ! I I 'i , , I I , 28 . ;1" ,l ! , • J :1 I the tulip and bell remained in favour right through the 19th century, getting even more swag-bellied as time passed. Glass bottoms appeared about 1895. Spllrned spelter Richard Munday is both a collector of and deaier in antique pewter who has . 'I, . . built himself a reputation as one of the ,world's leading authorities on the subject. ,... But it cou~dcatch on, He also has the distinction, as a fellow . '! I t. : . of the Worshipful Company of Pewterers, of having been almost solely instrumental ,says ' JAN~ HOLLlNGWORTH. in arranging the only occasion on which a . . \ I ruling monarch has ever crossed the , , ! ! portals of that august body. The monarch · 'VE NEVER 'had the pleasure : that every small cottage and hamlet in the in question was King Olaf of Norway, a " ,of meeting .a spelter coll~ctor: I country . had one or two disolaved in long-standing customer of Mr. Munday. · . ::,; face-to-fac~, .. but I've alw~ys : I 'pride of place on the mantelpiece. . His Chiltern Street, London, W.1, shop 11 imagined thimt to be that breed' Certainly they were mass-produced, carries a vast and beautiful stock, of person Who , goes around 'in a probably being cast from rubber moulds although some of the pieces are strictly deerstalker hat' witll a meerschaum' pipe ", taken from the originals. "nqt for sale". and a huge magnifyjrig glass. For spelter is,' ;, The great thing about spelter from the His. views on the somewhat vexed one of those fields which is collected' bYr ' modelling point of view was that it was so question .as to whether old pewter many, and y~t researched by none. ,1; . soft and malleable, and with a relatively tankards should be cleaned are very . About the' .only official referente to; i. low melting point, so that our French simple and logical. If it . is going to be the metal c'omes in' the Shorter Oxford ' cousins could churn the stuff out at a used, it has to be cleaned. If it is purely Dictionary. Characteristically terse iihd to' ! quite I •. a,we-inspiring rate. Presumably, for ornamentation it is not necessary '­ the point, speIter is described as "an ahoy' ; though, the English were not slow to see and with a really old piece it is downright or solder of which , is the priricipal .: the.j>otential profits to be made, for, in foolish. Major cleaning jobs, by the way, constituent,1815". Presumably 1815 was , should be done by experts. the year in which the alloy , was officially; i This can, of course, lead to some registered and patented, but that really is ' rnis-understandings. While I was talking to only conjecture on my part. And it cotnd , him a party of American tourists entered as a surprise to telephone the Victoria & ' the shop looking, it appeared, for cheap Albert MuseUm ' to find that nobody :has ), souvenirs. ' They seemed rather heard of the stuff, that their library has : dissatisfied to discover that gleaming no books on antiques which refertQ it, : . tankards prepared for functionally and that neither has any other metalwork . minded customers were in reality just as · library in the land,' j , : \ j i :; ,' . old as their grey-black neighbours. Y~t, wander into any ~ntique 'shopiri i· As regards to the fu ture, and the the ' c~untrY, no matter how smatl, iand ': ; present less wealthy collector, Victorian · there you're likely to find ... yes, a 'few , . pub tankards, with the name 'of the pub . spelter figures, Go to a Phillips' ,aqctiori : . usually engraved on the bottom,. though and '; ,. yes,' there'll be a few : Si>~ltet : once despised, are going up in' price; ahd, figures., So what exactly are these figures~ :' by the same token, Mr. Munday points . Who' made them? When and why? :~ ;, . :,; out ,that as the supply of pewter gets Well, gOing on:' the circurilst,an tiai; sm3ner, and correspondingly more ' evidence, as they ' say in all the best , expensive, Britannia Metal must surely detective novels; ," they probably'l first : b~c(jme an "antique of the future" 0 appeared around I the 1850s: In effect\ :' these !early', ones are chea~ reprodubtions :, 'of the most famous' animalier brorizes of . ,the ' time. ; There ' were: about 6;000 : ' I I· 1 I , i \ i founders working roulld the clock in Pari~ i, 'producing the .expensive originals, lfnd it : . 1seeins . more' than, )lkely that they wer~ the ;,',' . ones '" who also decided to captute ' the , h ' ,Il I C eaper end' of the 'market at the, same i tiine;.Just as 'gift shops up and down: the !. : countrr were ,flooded out with I ~c1)eap :, ! plaster-of-Parls , reproduction : i p,ee~ I., sculpture after the last war, so the English i , 19 th-elm turY : gift j, shops suffered ~ .'. positive , tid.lif :: wave of spelte~ .. , reproduction ; animaliers. Al~ ': ~ the ' traditional ~ figllie~, were .' made - t!aging I' : stallions, prowling tigers, 'predatory ,bears.; /, and so on, and the !alloy was also ca~t ill the form of huge .Renaissance-style vases ; .' . and ' ewers,: and ' for the cases ofl ~arge , An English cider pitch'er of rare pint size with domed cover, scroll handle and open clocks. :', _: ,.!; :. : thumbpiece. The price at Phillips on ;. Judging by tite vast amounts stili on . March 20 was £105. the market in this country it would seem ' . ':1, '1 ' ",1 ,', Art & Antiques, August 25, 1973 ,!"