A James I silver spice or sugar box maker's mark of B.T with two staves in saltire between

A James I silver spice or sugar box

maker's mark of B.T with two staves in saltire between, possibly for Balthasar Trimson, London 1611,

shell form, the hinged cover realistically chased as a scallop shell, with two smaller shells, stylised ovolo border, plain sides the base with a similar border on four snail feet, total length 14.5cm, length under the base 13.7cm, approx. weight 10.3oz.

Provenance: A wedding present to Sir Godfrey Nicholson, Bt and his wife, Lady Katharine (the fifth daughter of the 27th Earl of Crawford) married 1936, and thence by decent to Baroness Emma Nicholson of Winterbourne.

The box has been on public display in the silver galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum from 1974 until 2017.

A similar shell-form spice box on snail feet, by the same maker, 1609, was sold from the collection of the late Charles L Poor, Sotheby's New York, 26 October 2005, lot 136; another similar box, of the same maker and date was exhibited in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts, USA; another similar example also by the same maker, 1612, was in the collection of Mrs Winston F Guest, and sold at Sotheby's New York, 17 June 1981, lot 55.

For maker's mark see: Mitchell, D., Silversmiths in Elizabethan and Stuart London, The Boydell Press, 2017, Page 248.