Report by Roland Arkell
ONLY a handful of pieces of Irish secular silver are known to survive from before the Restoration – among them an austere Commonwealth period porringer shown by dealers How of Edinburgh at The Antique Dealers’ Fair & Exhibition at London’s Grosvenor House hotel in 1967.
Dubbed ‘the IS porringer’ on account of its (possibly modified) engraved initials, it was pictured in an advert in Connoisseur magazine in September 1967 together with the note: “One earlier piece of Irish secular plate at present recorded.”