An extremely rare William III provincial silver beaker, Newcastle circa 1695-1700 by Eli Bilton I (free. 1683, d.1707/8)

An extremely rare William III provincial silver beaker, Newcastle circa 1695-1700 by Eli Bilton I (free. 1683, d.1707/8)

Of gently tapering cylindrical form with a moulded foot and a caulked rim. The body with engraved decoration of three tulip forms from piles all from a strapwork border with foliate sections. Engraved to the front with contemporaneous or near contemporaneous initials > A * S < in Roman script. Marked underneath with maker’s mark EB in a rectangle twice and town mark within a cotised shield twice.

Height – 8.4 cm / 3.3 inches

Weight – 115 grams / 3.7 ozt

The majority of surviving pieces of pre-1700 silver by Eli Bilton are trefid spoons, a tankard was sold Dreweatts 14 Oct 2009, lot 38, a chocolate pot with a given date of 1694, one of only two Newcastle examples, is listed in Jackson (p. 493), who also illustrates these same version of Bilton’s mark and town mark as on this beaker as a tankard, given the date 1698-89.

A taperstick by Bilton sold, as unidentified, Woolley and Wallis, 28 April 2021, lot 2025 (£13,000 hammer)

A pair of trefid spoons, from the Ellis Collection, by Bilton, sold Tennants 15 Nov 2013, lot 635 (£4400 hammer)

A trefid teaspoon with this version of marks was sold Woolley and Wallis, How of Edinburgh, 30 Oct 2007, lot 134 (£780 hammer)

A covered twin handled cup by Bilton was sold Christie’s New York, 20 April 2001, lot 344 (£$9987 incl. prem)

Eli Bilton, son Thomas Bliton of Ratshersid, Northumberland, served a ten-year apprenticeship as a glazier and earned the freedom of the town of Newcastle by entering the trade guild as a glazier in 1682. On April 18, 1683, however, he took the following oath before the guild, called the Associated Company: "I Ely Bilton of New-castle upon Tyne Goldsmith doe promise to give a bond to the Company of plumbers pewtherers Glasiers and painters against the next headmeeting day Commonly called Christi Corpus & that he shall not excercise the aforesaid trades but onely a Goldsmith for which performance well & truely I bind myself in one hundred pounds witnesse my hand & seale" (as quoted in Margaret A. V. Gill, A Directory of Newcastle Goldsmiths, 1980, pp. 63-64). In 1702, when Newcastle was finally permitted to establish its own assay office and silversmiths' guild, Eli Bilton was a founding member, attending the first meeting of the Goldsmiths' Company on June 24, 1702.