The tumbler has not been seen in public since the 1970s but has now been bought for a five-figure sum from a private collector and will this week go on display in Chester’s Grosvenor Museum.
The new owner is The Tyrer Charitable Trust, a charity set up by Chester-based legal specialists Aaron and Partners, that helps put important and historic works on show to the general public.
Tyrer trust chairman Clive Pointon said the trust has a significant endowment and buys privately, from dealers and at auction, when suitable artworks and objects become available.
Clive Pointon, chairman of The Tyrer Charitable Trust and head of wills, trusts and tax at Aaron & Partners, with the Peter Pemberton Tumbler Cup.
Pemberton was an apprentice to noted goldsmith Nathaniel Bullen and became a freeman of Chester in 1676/77. The tumbler, which is believed to have been made the following year, is now on loan at the Grosvenor Museum. It joins a number of other objects purchased by the trust including a large Chinese export porcelain punch bowl with the Cholmondeley of Vale Royal coat of arms, Henry Anderton’s Portrait of a Lady, a porringer by silversmith Ralph Walley, a Chester silver spice box, a marble bust of Roman emperor Caracalla thought to be by the studio of Francis Harwood, and a John Downman painting called A Gothic Subject.
The recent history of the Peter Pemberton Tumbler Cup:
1962 - part of the Lowe Collection in Chester
1968 - sold to a collector
1973 - part of an exhibition by Sotheby’s Chester
2002 - sold to a private collector
2017 - sold to the Tyrer Charitable Trust
