Bonhams 1793 : A very rare Beilby enamelled 'Privateer' colour-twist wine glass, dated 1767

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30 Nov 2011 10:30 GMT London, New Bond Street
The A.C. Hubbard Collection of Important English and Dutch Glass
Back to auction 19675

A very rare Beilby enamelled 'Privateer' colour-twist wine glass, dated 1767

The round funnel bowl painted in opaque-white with a three-masted ship with red highlights, inscribed 'the Providence' above, the reverse inscribed Jon: ELLIOT 1767, the stem with an opaque-white corkscrew edged in dark red and blue threads with a spiral yellow thread over a conical foot, (chips to footrim)

Sold for £30,000 inc. premium

Footnotes

Provenance:
The Hamilton-Clements Collection, sold at Sotheby's, 15 May 1930, lot 70
Anon., sale, Christie's, 18 May 1999, lot 316

Literature:
Lloyd (2000), p.93, pls.130 and 131

Only one other glass of this type is recorded: the example sold at Sotheby's, 2 July 1985, lot 692, now in the Durrington Collection (see Roger Dodsworth ed., Catalogue (2006), p.40 fig. and p.60, no.35). This pair are the only known enamel-decorated colour-twist wine glasses. The colour twist stem is also particularly unusual and incorporates an arrangement of colours which is exceptionally rare.

Whilst it has not yet been possible to trace the ship and owner or captain commemorated on this glass, both the name of the ship and the name of the captain are recorded, although not at this date. These glasses have always been referred to as 'Privateer glasses', but as the portholes on the ship are closed it may have been a trading vessel. Ship portraits occur on two other Beilby objects - the Margaret and Winneford Punchbowl, now in the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, circa 1767, and the Whitehaven Goblet, which bears the Royal arms of George III and a ship possibly that of the Prince George or King George, circa 1762-63.