Location

203A British Painting and Decorative Arts

Fun Fact

A scalloped rim and raised depictions of flowering poppies on this plate suggest that it was likely intended to be displayed on a sideboard rather than used as part of a table service.

Description

Silver fulfilled a prominent role in projecting wealth, status, power, and ritual in British life during the 1600s and 1700s. Elaborate forms such this shallow dish not only represented wealth in its sheer silver weight but also provided royal and aristocratic owners a surface for displaying engraved coats of arms. For example, this dish is engraved with the arms of Sir Charles Holte (1648–1722), the 3rd Baronet of Warwickshire, and his wife Anne Clobery (1664–c. 1738) of Bradstone, Hampshire, along the southern coast of England.

Inscriptions

Inscription

Engraved with arms of Holte impaling Clobery (the arms of Sir Charles Holte (1648–1722), the 3rd Baronet of Warwickshire, and his wife Anne Clobery (1664–c. 1738) of Bradstone)

Inscription

“WW”; possibly hallmark of William Wheeler

Provenance

?-1938

Clobery, Holte, Bracebridge families, by descent

1938

(Sotheby's, June 23, 1938, no. 133, sold to unknown owner)

1968

(Sotheby's, July 4, 1968, no. 75)

(Spink & Son, London)

1970-1979

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

(Brand Inglis, London)

Citations

Hawley, Henry. "An English Silver Dish." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 71, no. 10 (December 1984): 334-40. Mentioned: pp. 334-40; reproduced: pp. 335-6 www.jstor.org

Exhibition history

No legacy exhibitions

The Year in Review for 1982. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 5-February 6, 1983).

British Gallery Reinstallation (June 2020). The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer).