Pear shaped on spreading foot, with central moulded rim, the hinged cover with baluster finial and an openwork scrolling thumbpiece, engraved with a coat-of-arms and an inscription, marked below the rim and in cover
11¹⁄₄ in. (28.5 cm.) high
40 oz. 6 dwt. (1,255 gr.)
The arms are those of the City of Lichfield.
The inscription reads:

THIS FLAGGON WAS THE GIFT OF CHARLES SKRYMSHER BOOTHBY Esq. / AND OF ANNE HIS WIFE TO THE PARISH / WEIGHING 40 OUNCES 10 DWT.

Charles Skrymsher Boothby (1706-1774) and his wife Anne Buswell (1720-1785), given to the parish church of St. Philip and St. James, Ratby, Leicestershire in 1781
Anonymous sale; Bonhams, London, 8 November 2005, lot 64.

A. D. Hedderwick Trollope. An Inventory of the Church Plate of Leicestershire, Leicester, 1891, p. 327.

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Lot Essay

An almost identical beer jug was presented by the same donors to the church of Foston, where Charles Skrymsher Boothby's widow Anne erected a monument in his memory. The arms on the front of jug are those found on the seal of the city of Lichfield which represents the three three kings' slain, according to the tradition, together with a thousand Christians at the end of the third century during the persecution of the Emperor Diocletian; the bodies of the martyrs are show lying on Borrowcop Hill, the scene of the supposed slaughter; the spires of Lichfield Cathedral appear in the distance.