The de Pinna cup- An unrecorded Elizabeth I unmarked silver mounted Chinese porcelain bowl, the mounts English circa 1580-1600

The Kraak porcelain bowl Ming Dynasty, Wanli reign (1573–1620), formed as a goblet with a pedestal silver mount. The bowl with an everted rim of silver with punch work decoration above an invected edge, held by three straps with invected edges with pinned junctions (one pin deficient replaced by ferrous wire). The stem section formed as five open work sepal leaves with engraved hatched decoration adjoined by a notched section all above an ovoid section with central incised concentric circles heightened with engraved striations. The circular foot with a raised notched boss above a domed lower section with embossed decoration of three arabesque sections centred with a stylised pomegranate, each interspersed with fruit bouquets all against a textured ground.

Height – 13.1 cm / 5.2 inches

Diameter – 7.3 cm / 2.85 inches

This Elizabethan silver mounted cup shares a provenance history with the highly important Ming porcelain canteen bottle now in the Smithsonian museum (accession number: F1958.2), which was sold by the vendor’s family initially: Sotheby’s, London, “Fine Early Chinese Pottery and Porcelain…,” 29 Oct 1957, lot 166: “An Important 15th Century Large Blue and White Circular Flask”. However, additional research has revealed a likely link between this canteen bottle and this silver mounted porcelain with the Oriental porcelain dealer Alfred Samson de Pinna (1868-1963).

Provenance:

Pre-1947:

Arthur Abraham Clifford De Pinna (1889 - 1947). The son of David Saffeti De Pinna (1853-1908) whose probate effects were sworn at £810, 6s 9d. In the 1911 census Arthur is described as a “second hand furniture dealer”. ‘A.C. de Pinna Limited’ located at 20 Dover Street, Piccadilly was no longer considered financially viable on the 6^th January 1914, and it went into voluntary liquidation on the 10^th June 1914. After serving in WWI on the 7^th of January 1919 Arthur relinquished his appointment and would again go into business, however by 1931 he was facing bankruptcy charges filed by his creditors. The case was proved in March 1932 and the business went into receivership. He was survived by his wife inheriting the sum of £3462.

From 1947 to 1957 (sale of canteen bottle) to 1986:
Clare de Pinna (1889-1986), Chiswick, London, by descent from her husband Arthur in 1947.

1986: Present

Thence by descent

Potential earlier Provenance:

Alfred Samson de Pinna (1868-1963) was the son of Charles David de Pinna (1840-1894), an Ostrich Feather Merchant in 1881 and his wife Janette (1844-1929). Alfred was described as an ‘oriental salesman’ in the 1891 census, while living with his father, now described as a publican.

David Saffeti De Pinna (1853-1908) was the son of Alfred Raphael De Pinna (1831-1915) described as an Ostrich Feather Merchant in 1861 and his wife Jeanette (b.c.1833).

Both Alfred Raphael De Pinna (1831-1915) and Charles David de Pinna (1840-1894) were the sons of David de Pinna (1809-1869), who was described as a shoemaker in the 1841 census, and his wife Caroline (1811-1886) whom he married on the 25^th Dec 1827.

Therefore, Alfred Samson de Pinna (1868-1963) is likely to have been the owner of this item and this passed onto either his first cousin David Saffeti De Pinna (1853-1908) or his first cousin once removed, Arthur, during his time as a furniture dealer. Alfred Samson de Pinna operated between 1903-1930 at 89, Regent Street, W1, London, England, 1932-33 at 12 Devonshire Street, Portland Place, W.1, London, England, and in 1948 at 25 Brook Street, W.1, London, England.

Silver mounted Chinese porcelains in Elizabethan England

There was a vogue in the Elizabethan age for mounting Chinese porcelains in silver, as these items were precious imported goods held in the utmost esteem at the time. Other items to be mounted in silver during this period included Rhinish pottery, Iznik pottery, coconuts, and nautilus shells. Secular silver from the Tudor and early Stuart period is renowned for its rarity, with most surviving pieces being spoons and ecclesiastical communion cups. Items such as standing cups, salts, ewers, basins, and dinner plates are exceedingly rare for surviving the three periods of great melting: the English civil war, the Britannia act of 1697, and the grand refashioning of dining in the late 18th century. Through the perfervid collecting habits of Sir Robert Walpole at Strawberry Hill and William Beckford at Fonthill Abbey, antiquarian taste took hold from the 1810’s and items such as this silver mounted cup came to be understood and appreciated for their historical significance. Indeed, William Beckford was noted for having silver gilt mounts placed on 18th century Chinese and German porcelain in the 1810’s and 20’s. These 16th century Chinese porcelains as well as Iznik vessels would have reached London through Egypt and Turkey, however by the 1580s and 1590s English privateers were seizing porcelain along with other Chinese manufactured articles from Portuguese carracks. (Philippa Glanville, Silver in England, (1987), pp. 233-236)

While unmarked this cup shares several stylistic features with surviving late 16th century silver, in particular the embossed strapwork arabesques and foliate bosses to the foot, as well as the simple engraved decoration to the central knop and sepal form stem. The decoration to the foot bears much similarly to tankards, salts and jugs hallmarked throughout the 1580’s. This item has a Chinese porcelain tea bowl, tea being something not yet drunk in Britain, that is mounted for use as a wine goblet, which importantly is a secular vessel, as “[t]he goblet appears to have to derived from a small shallow tazza form of cup which grew deeper as the reign progressed [Elizabeth I] and reached its apogee about 1625.” Clayton. M. (1985). Christie’s Pictorial History of English and American Silver. Oxford: Phaidon. p29. Examples of silver mounted Chinese porcelain is found as; unmarked, maker’s mark only and fully hallmarked. These dated hallmarked examples range from about 1569-1599. Unmarked examples are valued less than a fully hallmarked mount which makes for an item of silver of outlandish desirability.

For a comparison of the form of embossed decoration on the foot of this cup, the Lennard Cup of 1569, which is the earliest dated piece of English silver mounted Chinese porcelain, is a very useful comparison (Museum number PDF.695). The use of the embossed strapwork separated by foliate and fruiting bouquets against a textured ground establishes this form of decoration as early as circa 1570 for English silver mounted porcelain. A silver mounted Iznik pottery ewer of 1597 also demonstrates the same schema of decoration to its silver lid (Museum number AF.3132). Another Elizabethan silver gilt mounted Iznik ewer of 1586 demonstrates the use of invected edge pinned straps that were also so popular on coconut and ostrich egg cups, sold Christie’s London, 19 Nov 2002, lot 144 (£127,650.00).

Sir Walter Raleigh is believed to have had four items of Wanli porcelain mounted in silver gilt circa 1585, which he later bequeathed in 1597 to Lord Burghley’s son Robert (1563-1612), later sold at the Exeter sale, Christie's London, June 7–8, 1888, where eventually acquired by J.P. Morgan and sold in 1944 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Of these four pieces, a dish, two bowls and an ewer, the last is by far the most exceptional piece of London silver mounted porcelain to have survived and is marked with a maker’s mark only of three trefoils voided (unidentified) which is also found on two others in the group. (Accession Number: 44.14.2).

An unmarked English silver gilt mounted Chinese porcelain bowl with Xuande mark and of period (1426-1435), with twin handles was sold Weschlers 15 Sep 2017, lot 179 ($48, 800 incl. prem), with provenance: Christie, Manson & Woods, London, The Choice Collection of.....Rev. Montague Taylor, Deceased, May 19, 1897, lot 14.

Since Octavius Morgan published his first texts on silver hallmarks throughout 1852-53 scholars of silver have sought out to record early surviving silver, with the first comprehensive work published by Sir Charles Jackson in 1905. Several other important collections of early silver were formed or sold in the first half of the 20th century; by J. P Morgan, Sir Ernest Cassell, John Dunn Gardiner, Samuel Montagu 1st Baron Swaythling and Irwin Untermyer. In recent times the David Little collection of pre-civil war silver comprised of just twenty-four pieces that were not a spoon nor communion plate, sold Christie's London, 3 Dec 2019 (sale total £1,612,875 incl. prem). For an item of Elizabethan silver mounted porcelain to have remained in private ownership for easily over a century and not be published as part of these great collections or subsequent scholastic texts is a remarkable rarity.

Antique Plate Committee Case number 9591 (21 June 2023)

The de Pinna cup was assessed by the Antique Plate Committee on the 6th June 2023, as it bears no hallmarks it falls outside of the official jurisdiction of the committee, however an exception was made to offer an informal opinion of the authenticity of the cup.

The consensus of the committee was that the cup was in all probability an amalgam of different elements, some of which may be older than others. The view was that in its present form it is most unlikely to date from the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century.

Impurity Analysis of Antique Silver (25 August 2023)

The de Pinna cup was submitted for further scientific analysis of the metal content with samples taken from the foot, stem, and rim. The analysis of these test sites has been interpreted against a data bank of results of genuine English pieces of silver at Goldsmiths Hall. The three sites were found to have a probability of 96.33% for the date range 1500-1600 and 2.33 % for 1600-1697 and 0% post-1697.

Impurity Analysis of Antique Silver (21 May 2024)

The de Pinna cup was submitted for further scientific analysis of the metal content with samples taken from the leaves section and base mount of cup section. The analysis of these test sites has been interpreted against a data bank of results of genuine English pieces of silver at Goldsmiths Hall. The three sites were found to have a probability of 99% for the date range 1500-1600.