Porringer, tableware

Porringer with an everted reeded rim, rounded bowl, flat base and two ears of fleur-de-lis form. There is an unidentified touch in house mark style in a beaded circle underneath (a heart bisected by an inverted V flanked by the letters ‘I’ and ‘H’ surmounted by a ‘4’ symbol with horizontal bar and crosslet terminal). Date: probably late 16th century.

This porringer was described in Michaelis, 1949, Part 1, p 24 and Fig. VI and Homer & Shemmell, 1981 p 12. An almost identical house mark style touch was registered by Hintze Vol III:11 – Altona, and so it is possible that this porringer was manufactured in the Hamburg area. For further discussion on marks of this general type see E. M. Elmhirst, Merchant’s Marks London, Harleian Society, Vol. 108, London, 1956 and F.A. Girling, English Merchant’s Marks, Oxford, 1964.