Lot 203
THE SOCIETY FOR PROPAGATING THE GOSPEL IN FOREIGN PARTS SEAL
AN EARLY 18TH CENTURY SILVER SEAL
Estimate: £5,000 - £8,000
Auction: 17 September 2024 from 10:00 BST
Description
of circular outline, incised with a ship under sail, standing on the deck a clerical figure holding an open bible, with a crowd of figures on shore line with a scrolling ribbon above inscribed TRANSIENS ADJUA NOS, inscribed around SIGILLVM SOCIETATIS DE PROMOVENDO EVANGELIO IN PARTIBVS TRANSMARNVS, to a turn key back
Dimensions
10cm diameter
Provenance
Sotheby's 1st July 1997, Lot 297
Kenneth Davis Works of Art
The Matrix Collection
Footnote
Founded by Dr. Thomas Bray, to bring religion to British Colonies in America. It became extremely prosperous when a rich plantation owner left it a vast estate on Barbados. The first meeting the society was held on 27th June, 1701 at Lambeth Palace where steps were taken for the preparation of a seal and charter. The second meeting was held on the 8th July when the motto of the seal was decided and that the device or impression of the seal should be ‘A ship under sail, making towards a point of land, upon prow standing a Minister with an open bible in his hand, people standing on the shore in a posture of expectation and using these words; Transiens Adjuvo Nos.' The aim of the society was the ‘settle the state of Religion as well as may among our own people there, which wants their pious care and then to proceed in the best methods they can towards the conversion of the natives’
Literature: C.F. Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of the S.P.G., an historical account of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1701-1900, London 1901., p.6 and 7
