A George III Tumbler Cup

Provenance

Spink & Son Ltd., London, 1971
Sir Max Mallowan, C.B.E.,

Literature

Michael Clayton, The Collectors Dictionary of Silver and Gold of Great Britain and North America, 1985, p. 448
The Octagon, 1971

Description / Expertise

The plain tumbler cup is engraved on the side with a presentation inscription.
The inscription reads: “Pramium Decem aureorum Pro Oratione Wilsoniana, die 5to mens Jul. A.D. 1763 in Teatro Sheldoniano Habita Cui Thesis – “Nunquam Liberta gratior Extat Quam sug Rege Pio” Sibi adjudication in forman hujus Poculi fingi Voluit Gul, Sandys A. M., Coll. Omn anim. Soc. M.E.” – “ The ten guineas prize for the Wilson Oration the 5th day of July A.D. 1763 given in the Sheldonian Theatre with the Thesis – “Never was Liberty flourished better than under a Pious King” William Sandys M.A. Fellow of All Souls College was willing to have the prize made in the form of this cup”.
The crest is that of Sandys for William Sandys (1740-1816). Sandys was the son of Richard Sandys of Hewlstone, Cornwall and he matriculated from Queen’s College , Oxford on 10th April 1756 at the age of 16. He achieved his M.A. at All Souls in 1763, the year in which he won the Oration. He went on to serve as vicar of St. Miniver, Cornwall, a post that he held for nearly fifty years.

According to Peter Boughton (Catalogue of Silver in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, 2000, p. 140) this tumbler cup is one of only six gold tumbler cups dating from before 1830 to survive. Three of them were presented as racing prizes by the Grosvenor family at the Chester races and are now at Calke Abbey, Derbyshire, the Grosvenor Museum and a private collection. Of the remaining three the earliest gold tumbler cup is one of 1702 by Pierre Harache (Ellenor Alcorn, English Silver in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, vol. II, 2000, pp. 62-3, no. 13) and a seventeenth century example is listed by Arthur Grimwade (‘A New List of Old English Gold Plate: Part II: 1700-1750’, The Connoisseur, October 1951, pp. 83-9) as in the possession of the Worshipful Company of Cooks. As Peter Boughton points out “Gold tumbler cups had appeared as race trophies by the late 17th century, and were de luxe versions of the drinking vessels that would have been used at al fresco meals beside the race track” but that gold race prizes “were usually made with the maximum weight and the minimum amount of workmanship because the recipient almost invariably sent them straight to be melted and turned into cash”. The Grosvenor family presented gold cups worth £50 as a prize each year between 1741 and 1800.

The earliest tumbler cup would seem to be a one marked for 1636 in a private Canadian collection (Michael Clayton, see Literature). The collection at All Souls College, Oxford contains a number of tumbler cups dating until the 1670s (Helen Clifford, A Treasured Inheritance: 600 years of Oxford College Silver, 2004, p. 83) and these, doubtless, were the inspiration for the commissioning of this gold example.