A large Commonwealth sterling silver communion cup, London 1658 by TH ligatured between three mullets, perhaps Thomas Hanford

Of flared cylindrical form upon a spreading trumpet foot with a compressed knop, incised concentric circles to the edge. The body with a contemporaneous engraved vacant erased cartouche flanked by ribbon tied crossed palm branches. Fully marked to the rim, the foot with a lion passant.

Height – 22 cm / 8.65 inches

Weight – 591 grams / 19 ozt

This maker's mark is recorded in I. Pickford, Jackson's Silver & Gold Marks of England, Scotland & Ireland, Woodbridge, 1964, p. 123 on a communion cup of the same year engraved 'The gift of Robert Jenner, 1648', Marston-Meysey, Gloucestershire.

Thomas Hanford "should have been capable of making splendid plate as he was trained by Thomas Francis. Still, it seems his life may have been short. He bound two apprentices in 1652 and 1656 but the second was turned over to Toby Clutterbuck. Thereafter, there is no mention of him in the records of the Goldsmiths Company. Mitchell, D. (2017) Silversmiths in Elizabethan and Stuart London: their lives and their marks. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, P. 532.