Lot 405
WICK - AN EXTREMELY RARE SCOTTISH PROVINCIAL WINE FUNNEL
JOHN SELLAR
Scottish Works of Art & Whisky
Auction: Lots 1 - 412 | 20 August 2024 at 10am
Description
marked JS, WICK, the tapered baluster bowl with engraved crest of a griffin head above a torse, the slender tapered spout with reeded detail at the base of the bowl, the pull-out double muslin rim with reeded border
Dimensions
11cm long, Diameter of bowl 7cm, 3.09oz
Footnote
Considered one of the classic rarities of Scottish silver the survival of Wick-made silver has always been considered remarkable. Wick hollowware is certainly rarer than Tain silver, which is often ranked amongst the rarest. Tain has in excess of twenty items of hollowware by Hugh Ross I and II alone, while Wick only has four or five items by either of the recorded makers.
Of the recorded surviving Wick hollowware it would appear that only three of the items can be considered Wick-made and of these one is highly likely to have been bought in and marked by Sellar. Both mugs seem likely Wick-made (although one now later embossed and decorated) as are simple and plainly made and certainly within the skills of Sellar. For a recently sold example, the other in a Private Collection, see Woolley & Wallis 28th October 2009 ‘A Private Collection of Scottish Silver’ lot 123, hammer price £14,000.
The wine funnel under discussion, one of possibly three recorded, is almost certainly made in Wick, while the other surviving example (within Inverness Museum and Art Gallery’s collection) is highly likely bought in. Its style is certainly more Edinburgh or London with cast gadrooned border and shell clip, both features that would be impossible to make in a workshop the size of Sellar’s.