Antique English Silver - 07_01 (scroll down to see image)

A Very Rare Elizabethan Silver Gilt Salt
London, 1573, maker’s mark a pelican displayed (Jackson page 99).
Height: 9 3/4", Weight: 12 ozs., 8 dwts.

This salt is an extremely rare form of the Renaissance square-section standing salt which was popular for about twenty years at the end of the sixteenth century. Several similar examples are known, the closest being the Cosway salt acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1989. The embossed decoration and the castings on the present example are particularly fine, as is the color and condition of the gilding.

Provenance: The Property of a Gentleman, Christie’s, London, 6th May 1903, lot 620
Crichton Brothers, London, 1903 sold to Mr. Chancellor
George A. Lockett, Esq., 1942
Christie’s, 22nd April 1942, lot 137
An English collection

Literature: Charles Jackson, An Illustrated History of English Plate, 1911, p. 549, fig. 760. DWS Teasdale, "The Tradition of the Salt-Cellar", Antiques Review, Dec. 1952 fig. 5. Ian Pickford (ed.), Jackson’s Silver and Gold Marks of England, Scotland and Ireland, 1989, p. 99 (mark reproduced).