POST MEDIEVAL THIMBLE

1650

A silver thimble with waffle-shaped indentations but with pattern of linked cables left plain; plain band at part of the rim and plain disc at central point of dome. The thimble is in excellent condition, apart from one scratch running around it just below the dome. Given the regularity and depth of the indentations, the thimble may have been made on a lathe rather than punched by hand. Unmarked. Length approx 2.9 cm. Silver thimbles were used increasingly by the European nobility and gentry during the 17th Century but surviving examples are rare given that thimbles were much used and, when worn, were likely to have been melted down for their bullion value. In England, silver thimbles are documented as having been donated by women on the Parliamentary side to be melted down during the Civil War. Even later 17th Century English silver thimbles are rare, with few pieces in the national collections in The British Museum and the Museum of London. It has a good parallel of lesser quality, with linked rectangles instead of cables, in The British Museum, registration number 1921, 2-17, 9. The Museum of London holds a thimble of similar design to the latter with inscription, illustrated in Edwin Holmes, Thimbles, London 1976, p. 15 fig. 6c. Another silver thimble in a private collection, bearing an inscription in English, is published in Edwin Holmes, A History of Thimbles, New York 1985, p. 38. All three examples are dated to the 17th Century. An apparently similar thimble is depicted in a painting of a woman sewing, attributed to Johannes van der Aack (1635-1680) in the National Gallery in London (op. cit. fig. 8, p. 17). The thimble probably dates from the late 17th Century. In terms of age and as the object contains a minimum of 10% precious metal it qualifies as Treasure under the stipulations of the Treasure Act 1996 (Dr Dora Thornton, Curator of Renaissance Collections, The British Museum).