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Description: | Pressed sheet gilt copper alloy whistle, rectangular in plan and profile and square in section, with the underside of the mouthpiece having broken off, but the fragment still remains. The fragment of mouthpiece that has broken off has the maker's initials 'SD' in script within an oval cartouche and beneath a crown. The maker's mark is that of Sandilands Drinkwater, who was a London silversmith based in Gutter Lane from 1735-1761. There is a Georgian silver rattle with a whistle attached with very similar decoration, composed of flowers, leaves and tendrils or fronds, and another rattle that is less ornate but made by the same silversmith and dated to c.1750, both on ebay. These rattles had suspension loops on the whistle ends which would have been attached to clothing using ribbons.The whistle is decorated with a central rosette on each side, surrounded by five leaves and bordered by fronds or tendrils, which connect to a fanned scallop-shell shaped motif with curving strands of raised pellets on the top and bottom. The underside of the whistle is split down the middle and there is a circular section where the gilding has come away and where an attachment loop may have originally been soldered on to the surface, as in the rattle below. The opposite end to the mouthpiece has an octagonal frame with four arms of rows of raised pellets, emanating like rays from the central aperture, which has a circular border of bands of pellets.A similar machine-made pressed silver whistle with floral decoration is recorded in YORYM-A35180 which is dated from the Georgian to the Victorian period, c.1750-1900.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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