A Fine William III Cup and Cover
Silver-gilt
London, 1700
Maker’s mark of John Bodington
The arms are those of Heyton.
Height: 8 5⁄8 in (22 cm)
Weight: 39 oz 10 dwt (1,244 g)

John Bodington ran one of the most successful workshops in London at the end of the seventeenth century, producing silver equal to the best productions of the Huguenot immigrants. The quality of the strapwork, or applied flat decoration, on this cup is superbly done, and the addition of cast beading on top of the strapwork is a feature that few workers could execute well. It is a myth that strapwork and other advanced techniques were innovations of the Huguenots, for it appears on English silver as early as the beginning of the 1660s. Little wonder then that Bodington and his fellow Londoners petitioned the Goldsmiths’ Company in 1703 and again in 1711 complaining of unfair competition from foreign craftsmen, or ‘necessitous strangers’, who were willing to work longer hours for less remuneration.