Sale: CNG 82, Lot: 1402. Estimate $1000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 16 September 2009.  Sold For $2200. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

GREAT BRITAIN. temp. Victoria. 1837-1901. AR Covered chalice. Uncertain manufacturer, imitating late Elizabethan style. Total height 234mm (figurine: 64mm, chalice: 173mm), total weight 428.08 g. Covered chalice set on high base and decorated in late sixteenth-early seventeenth century répoussée work. Cover surmounted by figure of classical-style soldier holding spear and shiel decorated with eagle. Decoration incorporates five silver coins of Elizabeth I: set in the chalice proper - one shilling, second issue, i.m: martlet (1560/1) and two third issue sixpences: one i.m: coronet and dated 1568; the other i.m: eglantine and dated 1575, 1576, or 1578; cover incorporates two threepence of Elizabeth I: one unknown, but dated 1561; the other a fifth issue, i.m: crescent and dated 1589; on base of chalice and on cover, engraved I.R. within oval hallmark crowned X, indicating Exeter. Base of cover inscribed Ex dono Gulielmi Goddard filij/Edvardi Goddard armigeri 1660 on either side of Goddard coat-of-arms. Cf. Schroder Collection, 220 and Thomson Collection (Art Gallery of Ontario), 556 (for general type); cf. S.B. Wyler, The Book of Old Silver, p. 180, col. 2, no. 3 (for hallmark). Good VF, toned, figure reattached to cover.

The intent behind this Victorian chalice, in Elizabethan style, is a mystery. We cannot rule out the possibility that it is a 19th century “fake” produced for the collector market. The elaborate design and inscription, however, suggest that it may have been commissioned as a replacement or copy of family heirloom.

The inscription on this chalice would appear to record an intended gift. During the Middle Ages and on into the Modern period, such valuable gifts were used to repay personal debts, emphasize a friendship or alliance, or gain assistance in various matters. These items often took the form of utilitarian objects which, when used, reminded the recipient of the donor and the reason for the gift. An illustration is found in the play “A Man For All Seasons.” There, Sir Thomas More received a cup from a litigant inscribed, “I am a gift of Averil Machin,” meant to influence his judgment in the case.

According to Burke’s Peerage, William Goddard, the donor of this chalice, was a member of the Wiltshire gentry and was part of an important local family that had been living in the area since at least the thirteenth century. If he is the same person listed in The 1623 Visitation of Wilts, he was the son of Edward Goddard, Esq. (1584-1647/8) and his wife Priscilla D'oyly. It appears that this branch of the Goddard family rose to prominence under the Tudors, as little substantial information about Edward’s ancestors is recorded. Edward graduated from Oxford in 1601. During the English Civil War, he served in the Army of the Parliament and was Member of the Parliamentary Commission for Wiltshire. He is mentioned in a few testamentary bequests and acted as one of the executors for the estate of a cousin, William Goddard. At some point, Edward received the family coat-of-arms and the ability to add Esq. to his name, by which he is noted in the records.

Edward Goddard’s son, William, was baptized 28 February 1627. A member of the Worshipful Company of Grocers, he travelled between England and Massachusetts to oversee the collection of periodic debts owed him in the colony. When a series of losses at sea and the destruction of his property in the Great Fire of London in 1666 caused him financial hardship, he settled in Watertown, Massachusetts with his wife whom he married in 1652, Elizabeth Miles Goddard, remaining there and raising a family until his death in 1691.