Sugar or spice box

Date1610-1611

MediumSilver (Sterling)

DimensionsOH 3 1/2"; OL: 6 1/16"; OW 4 7/8"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1963-74

DescriptionSpice box raised and chased cover in the form of a large scallop shell with applied projecting stamped border composed of lobes, straps, and crosses; hasp with tapered sides and outward-curled end hinged to underside of cover at front and slotted to fit over loop attached to front of body; covered hinged to body at back; body conforming in plan to cover with short straight sides with applied multiple moldings at base above stamped flange repeating border of cover; interior of body divided into two compartments by a lateral partition; body supported on four cast shell feet.
Label TextBoxes of this type are among the most handsome articles of late Elizabethan and Jacobean silver. They are of consistent form with a hasp-fitted cover in the shape of a scallop shell, its rear extension usually chased with smaller shells and a wave motif, stamped formal moldings of Renaissance type at the cover and base, and four cast shell or snail feet. They are customarily referred to in contemporary documents as sugar boxes, though occasionally as spice boxes. Some references mention an accompanying spoon, such as "a sugar boxe, and one sugar boxe spoone" in the Unton inventory of 1620. The transverse partitioning of the interior of these boxes is believed intended to accommodate the spoon. Commander G. E. P. How has suggested that the small hoof spoons of the period may have served this purpose. His supposition seems to be supported by a spoon of that type and a sugar box of 1627/28, both engraved with the same owners' initials, which were sold at auction in 1969. Jackson and Hughes each illustrate a sugar box practically identical to the Williamsburg example and dating from the same year and by the same maker.

David Fox of Lancaster County, Virginia, drew up a deed of gift in 1662 leaving all of his silver to his daughter upon his death. It included "one sugar box in the form of a scollup shel," undoubtedly an earlier box of this type.

InscribedNone
MarkingsMaker's mark "TI" in block letters with starlike device below within a plain shield, leopards's head crowned, lion passant, and date letter on interior of base in front compartment and on underside of cover near hinge
ProvenanceHow (of Edinburgh), London (1941). Knight, Frank & Rutley, London (1962).
How (of Edinburg), London (1963)
Garrard & Co. Ltd., London
Acquired by CWF in 1963.

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