Basin

1618

Before forks became widely used, basins and ewers were used in aristocratic settings to wash hands in rosewater between courses of a meal. This ornate basin must have been made for a special occasion and used rarely. At its center is a detachable circular boss, which could be easily replaced to accommodate a new owner’s coat of arms. Surrounding the boss are sea creatures and fruit, while the outer circle is decorated with oval reliefs illustrating stories from the Hebrew Bible.

Medium	silver
Dimensions	2 1/2 x 20 x 20 in. (6.4 x 50.8 x 50.8 cm) Troy weight: 98 toz (3048 g)
Object Number	1989.2
Acquisition	Acquired in honor of Charles Buckley, 1989
Status	On View

Image Caption

Maker's Mark IV with a star below, Basin, 1618, silver. Clark Art Institute, Acquired in honor of Charles Buckley, 1989.2

Select Bibliography

British Antique Dealers' Association. Art Treasures Exhibition. Exhibition catalogue. London: British Antique Dealers' Association, 1932. Grosvenor House. Antique Dealers' Fair and Exhibition. Exhibition catalogue. London: Grosvenor House, 1936. S. J. Phillips. Advertisement. The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 67, no. 391 (October 1935): xi. Anonymous. "The Antique Dealers' Fair." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 69, no. 403 (October 1936): xix-xxiii. Furst, Herbert. "The Antiques Dealers' Fair and the Human Value." Apollo 24 (Oct. 1936):18797. S. J. Phillips. Advertisement. Connoisseur 100 (December 1937). Davis, Frank. "English Decorative Art under the Stuarts, 16031688." Art News Annual 36 (26 March 1938): 92103,178,180. B., C. E. "Recent Silver Loans." Bulletin 2d ser., no. 24. Hartford: Wadsworth Atheneum, April 1951. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Annual Report. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1989. Decorative Arts Society. Newsletter 15 (Spring-Summer 1989). Anonymous. "La chronique des arts." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 115 (supplement, March 1990). Glanville, Philippa. Silver in Tudor and Early Stuart England: A Social History and Catalogue of the National Collection, 14801660. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1990. Moncrieff, Elspeth. "The Silver Lining: A Review of the Silver Market." Apollo 133 (February 1991): 108–11. Wees, Beth Carver. "English Silver in an American Museum: The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute." Silver Society Journal 4 (Autumn 1993):115–23. Kern, Steven, et al. The Clark: Selections from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1996. Wees, Beth Carver. English, Irish, and Scottish Silver at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1997. Wees, Beth Carver. "Silver in the Clark Art Institute." The Magazine Antiques 62, no. 4 (October 1997): 536–45. James, Jolyon Warwick. "English, Irish and Scottish Silver at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, by Beth Carver Wees." Carter's Homes Antiques & Collectables (Summer 1998/99): 2830. Shirley, Pippa. "Review of English, Irish and Scottish Silver at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute by Beth Carver Wees." The Burlington Magazine 140, no. 1147 (October 1998): 692–93.

Provenance

Earl of Mount Edgecumbe, sale Hurcomb's, London, by 1932;¹ bought by S. J. Phillips, London;² with Apsrey PLC, London; sold to Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2 May 1989, purchased in honor of Charles Buckley. 1. The basin was exhibited by S. J. Phillips, Ltd., in the Art Treasures Exhibition held at Christie’s 12 October–5 November 1932 (cat. no. 624), captioned in the in the catalogue “From the collection of the Earl of Mount Edgecumbe.” According to Martin S. Norton of S. J. Phillips, it had been purchased in the 1930s at Hurcomb’s; see letter to Beth Carver Wees, 6 December 1990 in Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute curatorial files. William Edward Hurcomb held sales in London from the early 1920s to about 1932. Advertisements of his auctions, which were held in Piccadilly at the Grafton Galleries, appeared in the leading periodicals, where he announced "Weekly Sales of Old Silver and Jewellery. Fortnightly Sales of Antique Furniture, Pictures, China, etc."; see, for instance, Connoisseur 84 (December 1929): lx, and 87 (June 1931): liv. Among the outstanding objects to pass through his hands were the Vyvyan Salt, now at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which was sold in 1924, and the Treby Toilet Set, now at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, sold in 1921; see Philippa Glanville, Silver in Tudor and Early Stuart England: A Social History and Catalogue of the National Collection, 1480–1660, 1990, p. 459, and London, Goldsmiths' Hall, Paul de Lamerie: At the Sign of the Golden Ball, 1990, cat. no. 27. He published his memoirs in the two-volume Life and Diary of W. E. Hurcomb (London: Sanders, 1928). 2.The basin was lent to various American museums between 1950 and 1987. It was placed on loan to the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, in 1950 and was lent to the Art Institute of Chicago from 196 until 1973. It was exhibited on loan to the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute from 1973 to 1987.