Old Sheffield Plate ‘Adams’ style claret Jug, Mathew Fenton & Co c.1777

Sold

Rare Old Sheffield Plate claret Jug, after an Adams Brothers design, with elegant urn shaped body applied with a frieze of garlands, the elaborate handle terminal with acanthus moulding, the knop formed as a ‘fruit’, the handle carved in boxwood.

By Mathew Fenton & Co, Birmingham,

Circa 1777

30cm high

Condition: handle with small flaw, small dent to one side of base, silver with minor signs of copper to some edges, very good usable & display condition.
Note the ‘spin’ below has a wobble in it which is due to the turn-table moving irregularly, not the piece being crooked! 

Bradbury – History of Old Sheffield plate, p.308 for an identical: “1 1/2 pint Adam jug, by Mathew Fenton & Co. Date 1777”. He describes these jugs as “By no means the least useful, and certainly the most graceful…” of the Old Sheffield products. He refers to them as ‘Claret jugs’, stating they are ‘very rarely to be met with to-day’ (in 1912).
The attribution to Fenton via Bradbury’s illustration is firm, with only a couple of minor differences; the junction of the foot & body in ours has a seam, while the engraved illustration is smooth, and the handle – hand carved from boxwood- has an extra protruding spur at the base.

Sold - let us find you another