Victorian Bronze Child's Rattle

Carved in the half-round with prominent brow, nose and beard, lips parted and tongue visible within the mouth; mounted on a custom-made display stand. 6.95 kg total, 29.5 cm including stand



From a collection acquired on the UK art market from various auction houses and collections mostly before 2000. From an important Cambridgeshire estate; thence by descent.

Group of three love tokens, each a sixpence coin bent into a double-curved profile; one pierced and with initials to each face. 7.45 grams total, 20 mm each



Acquired on the UK art market. Property of an Essex, UK, gentleman.

The custom of giving a bent coin as a love-token is known from the 17th century in England. The coins were usually smoothed to obliterate the monarch’s head and then bent twice; sometimes they were engraved with initials or symbols such as hearts or knots. If the sweetheart accepted the youth's advances, she kept the token; if not, she disposed of the coin. The tradition is referred to in the children's rhyme "There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile, he found a crooked sixpence on a crooked stile."

Irregular fragment depicting the face of a man, possibly St Peter, in three-quarter view with luxuriant fair hair and beard on a blue field. 81 grams, 12.6 cm



De Baecque Vente, Paris, France, 5 March 2022, no.57. Ex central London gallery.