Porringers occupy a slightly ambiguous spot in Georgian silver, originally intended for eating soft foods like porridge or gruel, though by the mid-18th century pieces like this one were as likely to end up on the table as a sugar bowl instead, the form having outlasted its original purpose. This one takes a cylindrical body with a flared rim, decorated top and bottom with leaf-punched motifs framing a ropetwist girdle around the centre.
The lower body carries hand-chased scroll decoration across part-fluted, lobed panels, and a foliate vacant cartouche sits at the front, left blank for a crest or monogram and surrounded by floral detail. Scroll handles and a spreading circular foot round out the design, made by William & Robert Peaston, a father-and-son (or brothers, depending on the source) partnership working in mid-18th century London, and hallmarked 1761.
