Skip to main content
Lot 88

A very rare pair of millefiori knife handles by Bernard Perrot Glasshouse, Orléans, second half 17th century

29 September 2020, 10:30 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £2,805 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our British Ceramics specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

A very rare pair of millefiori knife handles by Bernard Perrot Glasshouse, Orléans, second half 17th century

With an assortment of composite canes including several of the Maltese Cross, on a ground of scrambled lengths of colourful filigree and ribbon, mounted with later steel blades, the handles 7.7cm long, the blades marked for John Dobby, Wych Street, Strand (2)

Footnotes

A millefiori shaft with several identical canes of the Maltese Cross is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession no. 83.7.43), attributed to Bernard Perrot (1640-1709), a glassmaker of Italian origin who was active in Orléans from 1662, see Erwin Baumgartner, 'Gobelets à millefiori à croix de Malte', in the catalogue Bernard Perrot 1640-1709 (2010), pp.67-77. The same shaft is illustrated by Paul Hollister, The Encyclopedia of Glass Paperweights (1969), p.20, fig.5, where it was previously attributed to 19th century Venice. Baumgartner states that a distinctive group of millefiori goblets incorporating similar canes have links to the Knights Hospitaller or the Order of St John, and are likely to have been produced by Perrot between 1668 and 1671. The present pair of handles was remounted by John Dobby, who was in business in London between 1832 and 1863.

Additional information

Bid now on these items