Rare Pair of 17th-Century Antique Pewter Chargers Depicting King Charles I & Henrietta Maria

A remarkable survival: a rare pair of pewter portrait chargers commemorating King Charles I and his queen, Henrietta Maria de Bourbon, almost certainly made as a marriage of plates and never since parted.

Each charger bears a central portrait roundel within a pearled and scalloped titulus band. The King appears half-length in armour after the Van Dyck type, with lovelock, sash and commander's baton, the state crown at his elbow, encircled by the legend CAROLVS DEI GRATIA MAGNÆ BRITANNIÆ FRANCIÆ ET HIBERN REX.

The Queen stands at a draped table beside her crown, in pearls and virago sleeves, within the legend HENRICA MARIA BORBONIA DEI GRATIA MAGNÆ BRITANNIÆ FRANCIÆ ET HIBERN. Both are dated MDCXIV — an engaging engraver's error, the L almost certainly dropped from MDCXLIV (1644), and telling evidence that the workshop lay at some remove from English affairs.

The decoration is worked by hand from the front, the grounds densely matted with punched cross-hatching, the designs ghosting through on the reverses with clear hammer evidence — the mark of honest period workmanship rather than surface reproduction.

The broad rims are punched with sexfoil rosettes and struck with owners' initials in individual letter punches: MCSW and MTDW to the King's plate, ITM and ITW to the Queen's, in the Germanic tradition.

The cult of Charles the Martyr travelled widely after the regicide of 1649, and Continental pewterers supplied portrait plates of precisely this kind for display on the buffet through the second half of the seventeenth century. Pairs retaining both King and Queen are of the greatest rarity.

Provenance: Most probably Germany. 17th-century.

Material: Pewter

Condition: Attractive untouched patination throughout, with wear and oxidation commensurate with age.

Dimensions: The King's charger: 15" (38 cm) diameter. The Queen's charger: 15" (38 cm) diameter.