A Graduated Pair of Antique Silver-Mounted Leather Blackjacks by Frederick James Ross of Winchester, Chester Hallmarks, c.1905–06

Please note that these are for sale as a pair. We will not split them!

A fine and evocative pair of graduated leather blackjacks, each with a hand-raised sterling silver rim mount secured by rivets, hallmarked at the Chester Assay Office in the opening years of the Edwardian era. The larger jack bears the silver maker's mark "F.J.R" for Frederick James Ross of Winchester; the smaller carries matching Chester marks with the maker's punch now worn, though the construction, form and mounting are entirely consistent with the same workshop. The underside of the bases of both also bear the impressed mark of "Ross, Winchester".

The blackjack — the great waxed leather drinking vessel of Tudor and Stuart England — was so peculiarly English a thing that visiting Frenchmen of the seventeenth century reported home that Englishmen drank from their boots!

By the late Victorian period the tradition had all but vanished, surviving in daily use only in a handful of ancient institutions, among them Winchester College. It was at Winchester that Frederick James Ross, working within the Arts & Crafts revival of traditional handcraft, became the last commercial maker of the true stitched leather jack, producing blackjacks and bombards to the historic pattern with silver mounts supplied from his own workshop.

These two examples show the classic form: bodies of heavy hide, hand-stitched with double rows at the seams, waisted in the seventeenth-century manner, with the characteristic broad heart-shaped loop handle. The leather has acquired a deep, lustrous black patination, and the silver rims a soft, mellow surface. Both vessels are in excellent original condition.

Pieces by Ross are increasingly sought after, both as the final flowering of a craft tradition reaching back to the medieval alehouse and as accomplished Arts & Crafts objects in their own right. A graduated pair, as here, is rarely encountered.

Provenance: England, circa 1905-1906.

Material: Stitched leather with silver mounts.

Condition: Good overall. Please refer to the images. There is surface wear to the leather commensurate with age. The stitching remains in good order on both pieces. 

Dimensions: Height 23.5 cm (9¼ in) and 20 cm (7¾ in) respectively.