An important international collection of antique silver nutmeg graters has recently been sold at auction, with some items fetching premium prices, reports the Antiques Trade Gazette These charmingly small collector’s items come in some unusual forms, such as a strawberry, a clam shell, an acorn, even a cup and cover – it was these unusual shapes which fetched the highest prices at the auction, held by Lawrence’s of Crewkerne (UK).
At the London Silver Vaults, the current specialist selling exhibition of silver boxes includes several fine examples of nutmeg graters, such as this 1881 melon-shaped grater and an egg shaped nutmeg holder dating back to 1793, both from Gideon Cohen at the Vaults
The ATG helpfully provides a bit of history about nutmeg graters, explaining how it was the fashion for punch that occasioned the onset of nutmeg mania in the C17th, and the manufacture of the now highly collectable silver smallwork, the pocket nutmeg grater. Throughout the following two centuries, as the upper echelons of society imbibed the exotic mix of lime, spices and alcohol, it became de rigeur to carry about the person a vessel to store one or more kernels and pep the brew with shavings of the sweet rich nut.
The most expensive nutmeg grater sold in the auction was an early C19th silver gilt example by Philip Rundell which included the cipher of King George IV – it fetched a sum approaching five figures. You can read more about the nutmeg grater collection in this weeks Antiques Trade Gazette (cover date 7 August 2010).
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