Antimonial cup with in circular red leather case tooled and decorated with gold, with additional circular straw box, made in England, 1680-1720, accompanied by a letter dated 13th May 1775 with instructions for using the cup.

Cast tapering circular antimony cup with small foot and horizontal band around the body, in circular red leather case tooled and decorated with gold with a brass hinge and two brass clasps, and additional circular straw box with separate lid, made in England, 1680-1720. The cup is accompanied by a letter written on behalf of Dr Richard Brocklesby of London to Mrs Ann Shaw of Goodwood, Sussex, dated 13th May 1775 with instructions for using the antimonial cup.

The antimonial cup was part of a group of objects (most of them textiles) purchased from Mr Harry Legg of 18 Tamworth Road, Croydon, in 1900. In his case for their acquisition, A. B. Skinner, Assistant Keeper in the Museum, advised the Director that the group represented 'a selection from a number of objects which belonged to an old family and which have been left to Mr Legg, who offers them to us. All these specimens, dating from the 17th century to the early part of the 19th century, will be very useful to us' (V&A Nominal File Legg, MA/1/L873). Legg originally set a price of £5 on the cup and boxes, but the note 'say £4. 10/-', shows he was offered less. In the end the Museum persuaded him to part with the group of objects for £40 instead of £45, 5 s. A list of the all objects received from Mr Legg and marked to show the ones that were accepted includes a note which stresses the leather box for the antimony case also contained a manuscript.

The red leather case is made of wood and covered with leather ornamented with gilt tooling. The decoration was made by applying gold leaf to the leather, then pressing it firmly with a small, hot tool bearing a pattern. Any excess gold was then brushed away. Inside the lid is inscribed 'Antimony Cup Ld. Peterboroughs'.

The outer straw case is decorated with coloured and natural straw arranged in a geometric pattern. Straw-work was practised in Europe from the 17th century, and straw-covered boxes were brought to England from Holland and later France. They were usually made in pine and covered in pictures made from natural and dyed pieces of straw, assembled at different angles to maximise the light values. Straw-work boxes are fragile and easily damaged.

Accompanying the antimonial cup is a letter dated 13th May 1775 written on behalf of the well-known London doctor, Richard Brocklesby (1722-97) giving instructions as requested to Ann Shaw of Goodwood, Sussex. The letter reads: "Dr. Brocklesby's Compliments to Mrs. Shaw, In answer to her desire to be informed about the Antimonial cup and how to use it. Fill the cup with Lisbon Wine or Moselle Wine, set it to stand for 24 hours and then pour it into a Wine Glass, two tablespoons are to be taken at first and after waiting from 10 to 15 minutes, give a 3rd spoonful unless the first has begun to operate, but if 3 fail after 15 minutes then give a fourth or a fifth if required at due intervals and most commonly the 3rd produces nausea, sickness and vomiting. It is to be wrought off like another vomit by taking at proper intervals (a pint at a time) from 2 to 3 quarts of bitter, strong, chamomile tea."

This cup was one of 13 objects investigated in 2019 as part of 'Gendering Interpretations': a collaborative project between the V&A, University of Plymouth, Vasa Museum (Stockholm), Lund University, Leiden University and the University of Western Australia. This project aimed to recover the complex gender dynamics that made objects meaningful to early modern people, and to increase the visibility of women and LGBTQ people in museum collections. Research on the V&A objects was carried out by Dr Kit Heyam.

Early modern people believed that illnesses and emotions were caused by an imbalance of humours (bodily fluids). The balance of cold, wet, hot and dry in the human body was controlled by the balance of blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile; if these became unbalanced, a person would feel the physiological effects. Emotions were understood to have a physiological cause, just like physical illnesses.

Consequently, drinking wine that had been steeped overnight in poisonous antimony cups - which would cause vomiting and diarrhoea - was seen as an effective medicine because it would purge the body of imbalanced humours. As John Evans wrote in his 1634 book The Universall medicine: or The vertues of the antimoniall cup, the antimony cup 'purgeth and purifieth the Body from all superfluous and praeternaturall Blood, Phlegme, Choler, and Melancholy' - that is, from the four humours believed to regulate physical and emotional health - 'and maketh the body vigorous, strong,Antimony was popularised in seventeenth-century Germany by a 1604 book titled Triumph-Wagen des Antimonii (The Triumphant Chariot of Antimony), in which the unknown author, writing in the probably fictitious guise of a monk called Basil Valentine, extolled the virtues of antimony as a panacea. This book capitalised on the revival of enthusiasm for alchemy in seventeenth-century Europe.

In France, though antimony was initially banned as a poison, it regained popularity after apparently saving Louis XIV from typhoid in 1657. Though some writers expressed scepticism, the popularity of antimony continued to increase in both countries, as well as in England, where Valentine's book was translated in 1660 and quickly reprinted in 1661 to meet demand. In England, the popularity of cups made from antimony was initiated by John Evans, whose book The Universall Medicine was intended to boost sales of the cups he manufactured.

The humoral theory that underpinned belief in the effectiveness of antimony cups also held that men were naturally hotter and drier than women, and that this determined 'male' and 'female' characteristics. Men were seen as stronger, more active, more constant and more rational. Men were also perceived to be better than women at controlling their humours, and therefore at controlling their emotions and bodily impulses. Consequently, it was this theory that underpinned early modern misogynistic discourse: particularly the idea that women were emotional and inconstant, and crying unmasculine.

Antimony was recommended for a wide variety of diseases and conditions, some of which were specifically gendered or associated with sexual transgression. John Evans's The Universall Medicine: or The vertues of the antimoniall cup (1634) and the 1660 English translation of Basil Valentine's book both recommend it as treatment for syphilis ('Morbus Gallicus' or 'the French disease'); Evans offers a case study of how the antimony cup was used by a woman who had contracted syphilis from her unfaithful husband.

The characterisation of syphilis as a 'French' disease reflected the early modern English association of sexual transgression with that country and with southern Europe more broadly, particularly Italy; this was linked to anti-Catholic sentiments and to beliefs that a hotter climate led to the dominance of 'hot' and impulsive humours. Evans also claims that the antimony cup can treat 'Green-sicknesse'. This was a fainting disease that affected young women and supposedly resulted from a need for sex, the woman having remained a virgin despite being of marriageable age. The theorisation of this disease provided writers with an excuse to disparage virginity in young women and encourage them to marry: it supported a gender ideology that maintained that women were weak (hence their fainting) and that their proper role was as wives and mothers. Similarly, both Valentine and Evans claim that antimony is an effective treatment for 'hysteria' (also known as the 'rising' or 'suffocation' of the 'matrix' or womb) in women.

This specific cup was owned by Mrs Ann Shaw, Goodwood, Sussex. Little is known about Ann or her use of the cup, but we know she requested instructions on its use, and received a letter as follows:

'Dr Brocklesby's Compliments to Mrs Shaw & in answer to her desire to be informed about the Antimonial Cup & how to use it. Fill the cup with Lisbon Wine, or Mosell, Wine, set it by to stand 24 hours, and then pour it into a Wine Glass, Two Table Spoonfuls are to be taken at first, & after waiting from 10 to 15 Minutes, Give a 3rd Spoonful, unless the first has begun to operate, but if 3 fail after 15 Minutes, then give a fourth or a fifth if requisite at due intervals, & most commonly the 3rd produces Nausea, Sickness & Vomiting. It is to be wrought off like another Vomit by taking at proper intervals (a pint at a time) from 2 to 3 quarts of bitter strong chamomile Tea. London 13th May 1775.'

Although Ann used the antimony cup consensually, these cups were used non-consensually on other women as treatment for 'diseases' attributed to women perceived as unruly. In 1718, Sarah Clerke was diagnosed with hysteria and melancholy, and confined in her room for 10 days - including repeated treatment with an antimony cup, which, her medical notes record, made her very distressed. During this time, Clerke's brothers seized all her assets. She was eventually released following a trial, but this episode starkly illustrates the potential for misuse of this poisonous medical artefact, and the misogynistic attitudes that underpinned beliefs about its effectiveness.

In the nineteenth century, antimony was widely available under the name of 'quietness powders', marketed to women who wanted to discourage their husbands from drinking alcohol. This gendered use marked a shift away from the understanding of women's bodily appetites as uncontrollable, and towards a worldview in which social class affected how gender was constructed: working-class men were seen as particularly prone to violence and drunkenness. This availability of antimony was, of course, open to abuse: in 1854, William Palmer poisoned his wife Ann using antimony, having taken out a life-insurance policy on her shortly before her death.

Dr Kit Heyam, August 2019

References:
• John Evans, The Universall Medicine: or The Vertues of the Antimoniall Cup (London: John Haviland, 1634)
• R. I. McCallum, ‘Observations upon Antimony’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 70 (November 1977)
• Gail Kern Paster, Humoring the Body: Emotions and the Shakespearean Stage (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2004)

Further reading:
• Jonathan Andrews, ‘‘In her Vapours ... [or] indeed in her Madness’? Mrs Clerke’s case: an early eighteenth century psychiatric controversy’, History of Psychiatry, 1 (1990), 125-143
• Lesel Dawson, Lovesickness and Gender in Early Modern English Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)
• Haller, John S., ‘The Use and Abuse of Tartar Emetic in the 19th-Century Materia Medica’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 49.2 (Summer 1975), 254-55
• Helen King, ‘Green Sickness: Hippocrates, Galen and the Origins of the '"Disease of Virgins"’, International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 2.3 (Winter 1996), 372-387
• Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford, Women in Early Modern England, 1550-1720 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998)
• StClair Thomson, ‘Antimonyall Cupps: Pocula Emetica or Calices Vomitorii’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 19 (1926), 122-128

Medical opinion until the 19th century held that illness could be caused by the build-up of bad 'humours' in the body. Purging, in the form of bleeding or induced vomiting, was believed to be useful for expelling them. This cup is made of antimony, a toxic metal that causes vomiting, diarrhoea and breathing difficulties when touched or ingested. Antimony was used in medicine from the 12th century but was so much abused that in 1566 it was banned in France. In the mid-17th century it was brought back into use and regained popularity. Antimonial remedies usually came in the form of cups, or as pills that could either be swallowed or soaked in wine. Either would have been fairly expensive, but the cups were likely to have cost more than the pills. Cups like this one, made entirely of antimony, are extremely rare. The decorative case suggests that it was a prized item.

Antimony is a silver-white metal. It combines readily with other metals to form alloys and was added to pewter to harden it from the 17th century. This cup was made in separate pieces, cast in moulds and then joined together.

1370A to D-1900