Description

An extremely rare little antique silver milk jug of octagonal baluster form with a hinged lid and serpentine curved lip. Britannia standard silver. Very heavy gauge silver. Excellent patina. Hand engraved to the front is a lion rampant crest within a contemporary decorative cartouche. This is one of the earliest forms of milk jug and the style is very much like a contemporary coffee pot.

Weight 386 grams, 12.4 troy ounces.
Scratch weight ‘12.2.0’.
Height 15.5cm. Spread 12.5cm. Diameter of base 5.8cm.
London 1713.
Maker Anthony Nelme.

Octagonal examples are very rare and extremely desirable. The silver retaining screw to the base of the wooden handle is part of the original design.

Marks. Stamped underneath with a full set of English silver hallmarks, the lid with the Britannia mark.

*Britannia Standard. In 1696, so extensive had become the melting and clipping of coinage that the silversmiths were forbidden to use the sterling standard for their wares, but had to use a new higher standard, 95.8 per cent. New hallmarks were ordered, “the figure of a woman commonly called Britannia” and the lion’s head erased (torn off at the neck) replacing the lion passant and the leopard’s head crowned. This continued until the old standard of 92.5 per cent was restored in 1720. Britannia standard silver still continues to be produced even today and is always prized.

Literature: Milk wasn’t commonly taken in tea and coffee until the early eighteenth century and there are no milk jugs dating to before the Queen Anne period. Cream jugs without lids date from the 1720s onwards.