Jim Peake
Head of Department
Lot 42
The Order of the Thistle: an exceptional Beilby enamelled opaque twist ale glass, circa 1765
19 November 2025, 10:30 GMT
London, Knightsbridge£10,000 - £15,000
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The Order of the Thistle: an exceptional Beilby enamelled opaque twist ale glass, circa 1765
The tall ogee bowl finely painted in polychrome with a thistle surmounted by a royal crown, neatly inscribed 'Nemo me Impune Lacessit.' in opaque white below, the reverse with a butterfly, on a single-series stem containing a lace twist outlined, over a conical foot, 19.5cm high
Footnotes
Provenance
Christie's, 18 May 1999, lot 319
A C Hubbard Jr Collection, Bonhams, 30 November 2011, lot 150
Literature:
Ward Lloyd, A Wine Lover's Glasses (2000), p.75, pl.93
This important glass is one of just three Beilby enamelled glasses recorded which are associated with the Order of the Thistle. A matching ale glass from the Mrs H F Thomas Collection was sold by Sotheby's on 11 June 1936, lot 38. Latterly in the George H Lorimer Collection and now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (inv. no.1953-29-5), it is illustrated by Simon Cottle, 'The Other Beilbys', Apollo (October 1986), p.322, col. pl.IX. A tumbler enamelled with the same motif and inscription from the A C Hubbard Jr Collection was sold by Bonhams on 30 November 2011, lot 22 and again on 2 May 2018, lot 139.
The Order of the Thistle was established in the late 17th century and revived by Queen Anne. This Scottish Order of Chivalry, the perquisite of Scottish kings and high nobility, was linked to the Jacobite political movement. Knights of the Order are appointed by the monarch and only a handful of Knights were created between 1763 and 1768:
Charles Schaw Cathcart, 9th Lord Cathcart (1721–1776) entered 1763;
William Douglas, 3rd Earl of March (1725–1810) entered 1763;
John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll (1693–1770) entered 1765;
Henry Scott, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch (1746–1812), entered 1767;
John Murray, 3rd Duke of Atholl (1729–1774) entered 1767;
Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle (1748–1825), entered 1767;
William Henry Kerr, 4th Marquess of Lothian (1710–1775), entered 1768;
David Murray, 7th Viscount Stormont (1727–1796), entered 1768;
John Ker, 3rd Duke of Roxburghe (1740–1804), entered 1768
It is likely that one of these commissioned this small service from the Beilby family workshop in Newcastle upon Tyne. The Duke of Buccleuch was probably a customer of the Beilby workshop as an unusually large pair of decanters decorated in opaque white enamel can be found today at Bowhill House, Dumfriesshire, which is the family seat. John Murray, the 3rd Duke of Atholl may have ordered a service of enamelled glass painted with coronets from a Newcastle glasshouse in 1764, see Simon Cottle (October 1986), p.323.