This chalice is part of the set of plate from the chapel of Culham College, along with a paten (Si209) and offertory basin (Si208).

The maker, John Keith, was official silversmith to the Cambridge Camden Society (from 1845 known as the Ecclesiological Society), founded in 1839 to promote ‘the study of Gothic Architecture, and of Ecclesiastical Antiques’. It advocated a return to a medieval style of church building and furnishings. In 1843, William Butterfield was appointed to supervise the Society’s new scheme for the manufacture of church plate, and Keith’s pieces follow his designs. At the Great Exhibition of 1851, Keith displayed specimens of the communion plate designed for the Ecclesiological Society ‘in the medieval style, well engraved and enamelled’ for which he was awarded a prize medal. The communion set purchased for Culham is at the plainer end of the Society’s range; an elaborately decorated version of this form of chalice is in the V&A.

Provenance: unrecorded, but presumably purchased in 2017 with Si208 & Si209

Location: Treasury, Gallery 1