Jim Peake
Head of Department
Lot 47
A rare Beilby enamelled Masonic tumbler, circa 1768
19 November 2025, 10:30 GMT
London, Knightsbridge£12,000 - £15,000
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A rare Beilby enamelled Masonic tumbler, circa 1768
Of attractive small size, the waisted cylindrical form with a solid firing base, finely painted with Masonic emblems in red and yellow overlapping sprays of white grasses, a continuous undulating band of flowering foliage in white below the rim, 7.8cm high
Footnotes
This is one of at least eleven celebrated firing tumblers of this most attractive size, probably constituting more than one original set. Three of these tumblers bear the inscription 'PT 1768'. The present lot is one of a pair discovered in a provincial auction in Kent in January 2019, the companion to which is inscribed 'PT 1768'. Interestingly, a set of four was discovered at a car boot fair in Brighton in 2005, of which two were of the inscribed and dated type. These were sold as a set by Christie's on 7 July 2005, lot 78 and subsequently as single lots by Bonhams on 16 December 2009, lot 59, 19 May 2010, lots 43 and 48, and 15 June 2011, lot 100. The dated example formerly comprising lot 48 was more recently sold again by Bonhams as part of the Stephen Pohlmann Collection on 30 November 2022, lot 36. The discovery of so many of these glasses in the southeast suggests that at least some may have been made for lodges in the region.
Two further examples without dates are in Corning Museum of Glass (inv. nos.51.2.156 and 79.2.66), of which one is illustrated by James Rush, The Ingenious Beilbys (1973), p.113, no.65. Another formerly in the collections of both Peter Lazarus and latterly Terence Woodfield was exhibited at the Laing Art Gallery, The Decorated Glasses of William and Mary Beilby (1980), no.69. Two more were sold by Bonhams on 30 November 2022, lot 34 and 11 June 2025, lot 117 respectively, the latter illustrated by W A Thorpe, English and Irish Glass (1927), col. pl.III, and A History of English and Irish Glass (1929), pl.CXXIII, and also by Delomosne and Son, Gilding the Lily (1978), no.66. To these can be added a 'PT 1768' tumbler of much larger size in the British Museum (inv. no.1946,0707.1), illustrated and discussed by Stephen Pohlmann, 'Masonic Beilbys', Glass Circle News, no.127 (November 2011), pp.12-13, figs.3 and 5. See also the similar tumbler from the Darell Thompson-Schwab Collection sold by Bonhams on 21 June 2022, lot 120.