This jug provides a rare example of a datable vessel cast by an English bronze founder, perhaps a bell founder, bearing his stylised maker's mark.
Bell-founders are known to have made other large domestic items and England has a rich legacy of medieval bells, embellished with a great variety of lettering and motifs. No exact match to the Wenlock makerÂ’s mark has been found yet, but a series of related bells in East Anglia provide design parallels that are suggestively close. The jug was stolen from the museum in May 2012 and the museum is pursuing all leads to recover it.
Provenance
? Member of Fermor family; Lt. Gen. Thomas William Fermor, 4th Earl of Pomfret; Sotheby's, 2005; Daniel Katz Ltd.