A VICTORIAN SILVER-MOUNTED CLARET JUG AND GOBLET | RUPERT FAVELL, LONDON | 1879

On the night of November 1, 1879, the Lyceum Theatre debuted perhaps the most influential production of The Merchant of Venice ever performed. The legendary Henry Irving played Shylock alongside Ellen Terry’s Portia for an unprecedented 250 performances.

The production was frequently reprised, including nine tours of North America. To commemorate the hundredth performance, on Valentine’s Day, 1880, Irving invited practically the whole of London’s gentry and literary elite (including Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde) to dine with him after the show, right on the stage of the Lyceum. As Bram Stoker recounts: "[Guests] were each presented with a copy of Irving’s text of The Merchant bound in white parchment and lettered in gold, and they sat down to a meal of clear turtle soup, cold salmon and cucumbers, lamb cutlets and mushrooms...washed down with magnums of Heidsieck champagne (1874) and Leoville claret of the same year, while a string quintet played softly…"

One clever attendee took a pair of these magnums to nearby silversmith Rupert Favell, who fashioned them into this unique claret jug and goblet, with Italian-style—perhaps Venetian—silver-gilt mounts.