Jim Peake
Head of Department
Lot 31*
An important Dutch engraved armorial goblet, circa 1747-50
20 November 2019, 10:30 GMT
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £13,812.50 inc. premium
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An important Dutch engraved armorial goblet, circa 1747-50
The generous round funnel bowl with a three-masted 44-gun ship in full sail, three sailors climbing the rigging, towing a small ship's boat, the other side with the Roos family arms within a foliate scrollwork cartouche, surmounted by a helmet and stag, flanked by martial trophies including drums, cannon, swords and lances, beneath the inscription 'T. GELUCKIG VAAREN VAN. T SLANDS OORLOG SCHIP BOEKEN ROODE' (Success to the Voyage of the Country's Warship the Boekenrode), set on a half-knop and an angular knop, above a beaded globular knop and hollow inverted baluster, over a domed foot, 25cm high
Footnotes
Provenance
Sir Robert Lorimer Collection, Christie's sale, 2 November 1982, lot 208
Christie's sale, 4 June 1991, lot 120
Drambuie Collection, Lyon & Turnbull sale, 27 January 2006, lot 82
The Boekenrode was built in Amsterdam in 1729 for the Amsterdam Admiralty by English Master Shipwright Thomas Davis. Davis had previously worked in Naples and along the Danube before arriving in Holland. He was employed by the shipyard in Amsterdam between 1727 and 1735, and the Boekenrode was the tenth of sixteen ships launched by him during this time; see A Peters, Ship Decoration: 1630-1780 (2013), pp.83-5. His designs were larger and lighter than other ships of the period, making then altogether faster.
The 52-gun Boekenrode measured 145 Amsterdam feet in length (approximately 134 Imperial feet). She was refitted in 1747, when her armament was reduced to 44 guns, as reflected in the engraving on the present goblet. Dirk Roos (1690-1767) was her Captain in 1733 and was promoted to Rear Admiral in 1748. By 1750 he is recorded as Vice Admiral of the Maas (Maze), Rotterdam. The engraving on this goblet may therefore commemorate his promotion in 1748, and almost certainly predates 1750. The Boekenrode was apparently stricken from the Navy lists in 1758. Some records mention a 'Boekenraade' in service as late as 1765; see J R Bruijn, De Admiraliteit van Amsterdam in Rustiger Jaren, 1713-1751. If this is the same ship, it would have been in service for an extraordinarily long period of time.
