Inscribed around the boss in the centre of the dish: EX DONO GEORGII RIVES SACRA THEOLOGIAE DOCT. HUIUS COLLEGII SOCII DEINDE NOVI COLL. CUSTODIS IN USUM / QUOTIDIANUM VICECUSTODIS ISTIUS COLL. MPROPRE WINTON. ANNO DOMINI 1613. [The gift of George Rives, Doctor of Sacred Theology, Fellow of this College then Warden of New College, to be kept in daily use for the Vice-Warden of this college near Winchester. AD 1613.]

The ewer and basin both engraved with the arms of Wykeham, empaling Rives.

The history of these items is more complicated than first appears. While the inscription indicates that they were the gift of George Rives (d. 1613), other evidence suggests a date of manufacture in the 1630s or 1640s.

Rives was a Scholar of Winchester College (elected 1574); Fellow of New College (1578/79–86); Fellow of Winchester College (1586–99); Warden of New College (1599–1613). An entry in the College Accounts of 1614-15 must refer to the ewer and basin bequeathed by Rives: ‘in regardis afferenti polubrum et gutturnum argenteum at Oxon, ii s.’ [for bringing a silver basin and jug from Oxford, 2 shillings]. It indicates that the items in question had already belonged to Rives, rather than being acquired with a legacy from him. The accounts for 1619/20 contain two further references to Rives’ ewer and basin. Both items were weighed (84¼ ounces – their modern weight is 86.8 ounces), and the Salisbury goldsmith Robert Tyte was paid 23 shillings for engraving arms and an inscription. Tyte’s lettering is quite distinctive and the engraving of the present piece does not appear to be by him.

The form of the ewer and basin can be most closely paralleled in plate from the late 1630s. For example, a set belonging to the Corporation of Portsmouth, marked London, 1637 (Charles Oman, Caroline Silver, plate 39B); an ewer sold at Christie’s 3/6/2015 marked London, 1635.

Mitchell (Silversmiths in Elizabethan and Stuart London) lists five pieces with this maker’s mark, all dated 1635/6 to 1638/9 but not including the present piece. There is a further piece in the College’s collection – Si012 – bearing the same maker’s mark and the hallmarks for 1649. Mitchell has tentatively identified Richard Carter (d. 1647) as the owner of this mark.

Literature: Percy MacQuoid, ‘The Plate of Winchester College’, The Burlington Magazine, vol. 2, no. 5 (July 1903), p. 57, plate 38a, b; Charles Oman, ‘The Winchester College Plate’, The Connoisseur (January, 1962), p. 29 (illustrated); T.A. Kent, ‘Salisbury Silver and its Makers, 1550 to 1700’, The Proceedings of the Silver Society, vol. 3, no. 5 (Spring 1986), pp. 121-22 (ill); T.A. Kent, ‘Salisbury silver and its makers’, The Silver Society Journal, no. 3 (Spring 1993), p. 37, n. 125; Schroeder, British and Continental Gold and Silver in the Ashmolean Museum, 3 vols (Oxford, 2009), II, p. 574n.

Provenance: Remade c. 1635-40 from pieces bequeathed by George Rives (d. 1613)

Location: Treasury, Gallery 1