Silver Collection
The collection of British silver in the Ashmolean Museum is one of the finest of its kind in the world. The first piece, an Elizabethan tankard, was given in 1790, but its real beginning was in 1946, when the first of four remarkable bequests was received. Each of these was complementary to the others, resulting in an exceptionally comprehensive collection of English silver, spanning the sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century. This has been greatly enriched by major acquisitions over the last twenty years and by a number of important loans from Oxford colleges.
The descriptions on this site are based on the full entries in T. Schroder, British and Continental Gold and Silver in the Ashmolean (2009)
The Ashmolean Museum is warmly grateful to Brian Wilson for his support in making this webpage and the one on the Finger Ring collection possible. The entries were compiled by Beth West.