Pair of silver-gilt flagons with pear-shaped bodies, spreading circular feet, scrolling handles and double pomegranate thumbpieces; chased all over with overlapping ostrich feathers, the fronts chased with a rose with two leaves (slipped in the stalk) and a crown above.

This pair of flagons formed part of the new altar plate supplied to the Chapel Royal at Whitehall Palace following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The front of the flagon is embosssed with the 'rose slipped' with crown above, an emblem found on other plate supplied for Charles II around 1660. In 1664-5 a very similar pair of pear-shaped 'feathered' flagons was supplied for the Duke of York (RCIN 31755).

The unusual form and feather decoration of these two pairs of flagons appear to be a deliberate and perhaps symbolic re-creation of early sixteenth century feathered flagons: the 1521 Jewel House inventory included 'two great gilte pottis chased wt fetheres.' The 1649 Jewel House inventory listed 'one great fether pott' and 'one old fethered ewer with a broken handle'. These may have been part of the new plate ordered by James I to replace the 14,000 ounces of Jewel House plate given to the Tsar of Russia in 1604. Many of these pieces reproduced the portcullises, roses and 'feather fashion' of the Tudor plate they replaced.

Both pairs of flagons were often described as 'potts' rather than flagons in Jewel House inventories, a reference to their anachronistic pear-shaped form. The 1688 inventory records them under 'Chappel plate' at Whitehall Palace. Following the destruction of Whitehall Palace in 1698 they were moved to the Chapel Royal in St James's Palace where they are listed in 1721.

This pair of flagons are struck with the maker's mark read as either JB or TB, which may be that of James Beacham or Beauchamp, from whom Pepys purchased a tankard for £20 as a gift from the Earl of Sandwich to Stephen Fox in 1660. Little else is known of him. The maker was evidently highly skilled, this pair are only a few pennyweights different from one another, a remarkable achievement at a time when such vessels were still raised by hand from ingots of silver.

Text adapted from Royal Treasures: A Golden Jubilee Celebration, 2002