Medieval 'Thames' St. Thomas Becket Lead-Alloy Pilgrim's Badge

Square composite panel with brown-hued vitreous enamel and pink pigment, irregular profile bust set into the diamond quarries. 838 grams, 30.3 x 27 cm



Ancient Arms and Armour, Stained Glass, Coffrets and Furniture. Property from a New York Collection, American Art Association, New York, 23 November 1923, no.110 (as Flemish XV-XVI). The Monastery Stained Glass, 2004. Accompanied by a previous cataloguing document.

The loose, fluid brushwork and fine touches of pink sanguine pigment on this male head place him firmly in the first decades of the sixteenth century, a dating supported further by the visible hemline of the fashionable pleated shirt covering his neck. These are all characteristic features of Southern Netherlandish stained glass from this period, and parallels offered by programs such as the early sixteenth-century windows in Antwerp Cathedral, the c. 1500 glazing scheme at Sint Gummarus church in Lier just outside Antwerp, as well as at sites such as Notre Dame du Sablon in Brussels, suggest an artist working in Brabant in the early years of the century.

Discoid in plan with lug to reverse, central quatrefoil with interstitial bars, legend to the border '*[.] RICARD EL[..]' (seal of Richard Ell(is?)). 17.6 grams, 29 mm



From the later Peter Hooper Pewter and Lead collection, who was a guest lecturer at West Dean College and was a longtime member of the Pewter Society, who contributed to the Pewter Society Magazine.

With a broad hoop, each shoulder decorated with a pointillé geometric motif, octagonal-section domed bezel with segmented upper and corrugated sidewall; inset nicolo with advancing lion motif. 9.96 grams, 31.53 mm overall, 19.51x23.08 mm internal diameter (approximate size British V 1/2, USA 10 3/4, Europe 24.40, Japan 23)



with Archaeologia, Switzerland, before 1983. Ex private North American collection. London private collection, 2016.