English Metalwork before 1603
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Glasgow Museums has a good collection of medieval and Renaissance metalwork of English origin. One of the earliest examples in the collection, the so-called ‘Temple Pyx’, is a celebrated masterpiece of twelfth century Romanesque metalwork. Depicting three slumbering knights, this piece was originally thought to have come a pyx (a container for the consecrated host), although it is more likely that it formed part of a book cover, shrine, or reliquary. Supposedly uncovered during repairs to Temple Church, London, much doubt has since been cast on this pieces’ reported provenance. It is possible that this is in fact the work of one of the great metalworking workshops of the Meuse Valley. Of far more certain origin is the collection of English silver. Often stamped with hallmarks denoting the silver’s quality, maker and year of fabrication, much of the silver in the collection can be confidently attributed to the workshops of sixteenth century London. Although regularly melted down for coin or to be refashioned into new wares, the collection does include some good surviving examples from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Particularly notable is the collection of post-Reformation ecclesiastical silver, including communion cups and patens, and the seven sixteenth century silver spoons, all finely made with decorative finials. There are a number of domestic wares, including base-metal mortars, cauldrons and candlesticks, and some wares of ceramic and wood, ornamented with decorative silver additions. Most of these pieces were donated by Sir William and Lady Burrell in 1944.
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