Turned and engraved pearwood, with the arms of James I, England, 1617

Standing Cup of turned and engraved pearwood, bearing the Royal Arms of James I, a dragon, a stag, a phoenix, and inscriptions.

Bequeathed by E. S. Clarke, Esq.

Note on RP 13/3789: 'The two English cups of engraved wood, one bearing the Royal Arms and the date 1617 and the other (with lid) [W.51-1913] bearing the date 1648, are both most interesting examples and would be valuable additions to the collections'

It had been suggested that wooden cups of this type may have been fashionable communion cups, although the use of wood as a vessel for the host had been forbidden by the Canons of Winchester as early as 1071. The identification of a silver chalice which replicates W.50-1913, although slightly smaller, supports a previously unsubstantiated hypothesis that wooden cups of this type were patterns or try-outs for silver chalices: a silver chalice formerly in the Robert Hoe collection, sold NY 1911, lot 1397 ("The Connoisseur" vol.2 (Jan-April 1902), p.51) bears the same inscriptions and same devices (personal communication from Malcolm Jones, March 2018).

Pinto relates that they could have been the cups of Royal Cupbearers, and though some of the crests relate to holders of this office, most had held it before the reign of James I. He also proposed that they may have been 'part of the insignia of some exclusive 17th century society', similar to, or perhaps an ancestor to, the Honorable Order of Little Bedlam, a social club founded by the 5th Earl of Exeter in 1684.

See also
Edward H. Pinto, Treen and other Wooden Bygones. (London, 1969), pp.34-7

The decoration would most likely have been executed with a hot thin steel implement on a carefully prepared surface, which would have been very smooth and probably glazed first. This would have been difficult to achieve, as heat could not be controlled very carefully, and so the designs may have been first finely gouged or incised and then later darkened.

W.50-1913