The exceptional pair with octagonal bases and fluted columns were part of a small private collection of early silver that had been stored in a bank vault.
Standing 10in (25cm) high and weighing just under 33oz, they carry the maker’s mark of TD in a script monogram, probably for Thomas Dymock, London 1685. The recently published Silversmiths in Elizabethan and Stuart London, Their Lives and Their Marks by David Mitchell (2017) – that takes the first surviving makers’ mark plate in the archives of the London Assay Office as its starting point – includes a write-up confirming the attribution of this mark.
The contemporary engraved armorials are for Burnell of Essex impaling Gybbons of Norfolk along with another.
In the wake of a record sale, silver specialist Rupert Slingsby described the candlesticks as “among the best of the best in terms of condition, colour, form and marks”.
Huge interest emerged across the trade before they sold to London dealer SJ Phillips at the auction on on April 24-25.
