ESTIMATED at £1500-2000, this rare English delft dish sold for £20,000 (plus 22.5% buyer’s premium) at Cheffins in Cambridge on March 8.
A handful of delft dishes are known carrying the date 1682 alongside royalist motifs. A Brislington charger with the date and a portrait of Charles II is pictured in Frank Britton’s English Delftware in the Bristol Collection, while another in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, depicts Queen Catherine of Braganza flanked by the initials KR.
The significance of the 1682 date is uncertain but it could relate to the death of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, a cousin of Charles II and a Royalist commander during the Civil War.