An excessively rare piece of Irish silver, the Commonwealth/Charles II two-handled porringer, comes up at Whyte’s Eclectic Collector sale in Dublin on July 25. Known as the ‘IS’ Porringer and with the maker’s mark unidentified it was made in Dublin around 1659/60. The piece is of plain form with scroll handles and engraved ‘IS’ within a wreath. It was sold for £3,000 (the equivalent of €61,000 in 2020) by How of Edinburgh at the 1967 Grosvenor House Antique Dealers’ Fair and is now estimated at 50,000-70,000.
The sale features a wealth of historically important material including The Wolfe Tone Archive, The Thomas Ashe Archive, 1798 and 1916 Proclamations, 1916 Rising medals, uniforms and weapons, collectibles from the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’, including the archive of Loyalist leader William ‘Plum’ Smith and a unique collection of ephemera related to Count John McCormack. Part 1 of the sale on July 25 at Freemason’s Hall, Molesworth St. in Dublin will be followed on July 26 by a timed online only auction.
