The tumbler has not been seen in public since the 1970s but has now been bought for a five-figure sum from a private collector and will this week go on display in Chester’s Grosvenor Museum.
The new owner is The Tyrer Charitable Trust, a charity set up by Chester-based legal specialists Aaron and Partners, that helps put important and historic works on show to the general public.
Tyrer trust chairman Clive Pointon said the trust has a significant endowment and buys privately, from dealers and at auction, when suitable artworks and objects become available.
Pemberton was an apprentice to noted goldsmith Nathaniel Bullen and became a freeman of Chester in 1676/77. The tumbler, which is believed to have been made the following year, is now on loan at the Grosvenor Museum. It joins a number of other objects purchased by the trust including a large Chinese export porcelain punch bowl with the Cholmondeley of Vale Royal coat of arms, Henry Anderton’s Portrait of a Lady, a porringer by silversmith Ralph Walley, a Chester silver spice box, a marble bust of Roman emperor Caracalla thought to be by the studio of Francis Harwood, and a John Downman painting called A Gothic Subject.
The recent history of the Peter Pemberton Tumbler Cup:
1962 - part of the Lowe Collection in Chester
1968 - sold to a collector
1973 - part of an exhibition by Sotheby’s Chester
2002 - sold to a private collector
2017 - sold to the Tyrer Charitable Trust