17th Century Bronze Skillet

A fine and handsome bronze skillet, much used yet retaining a good and full back leg with a full foot.

The handle, with a top edge cast with a pattern of continuous complex saltire crosses, is supported by a square brace. The body bears a scratch mark which may be that of the Birdall family. Described in an account by Blaylock, following the examination of archaelogical evidence recovered from the family’s Cowick Street (Exeter) foundry, fragments of cope mould were found ‘bearing the impression of scratchmarks in the form of intersecting straight lines which’ ‘could be interpreted as two intersecting inverted V’s forming a mark resembling an M’. Beside this mark is a further pattern makers mark (?) contrived similar to a merchants mark.

A seventeenth century skillet with a handle pattern similar to this present example is illustrated (No. 151) in Butler & Green’s handbook that accompanied a loan exhibition at Marwood House in 2003. There it is suggested, on account of the scratchmark RP, that the skillet comes from the foundry of the Purdue family.

Dating to the first half of seventeenth century.

dia:7.75 inches x 9.5 inches high top tip of the handle. (5.75 inches high front rim).