Fun & Games

  • Windmill cup

    Windmill cup, glass, silver-gilt, The Netherlands, c.1570, C. 416-1936

    Long winter evenings need not be dull with a windmill cup in your collection. The drinker would blow into its pipe, spinning the sails of the windmill, and would then aim to drink the contents before the sails stopped.

  • Peg tankard

    Peg Tankard, Silver, parcel gilt, Norway, Stromso (Drammern), Hans Nieman the Elder, c.1680, Museum no. 488-1910

    Tankards like this were marked inside with a series of pegs and would have been filled with wine or beer and passed around, each person having to drink until the next peg was showing. Given the size of the tankard and each measure, it would have been no mean feat to stay sober. This tankard is finely decorated with trees, flowers, birds and the figures of a man and a child. It might have been a christening present for Olle Jensson Bruun, the name inscribed on it.

  • Weymouth Regatta trophy

    Weymouth Regatta trophy, silver-gilt, London, 1827-28, Museum no. 845-1890

    This grand trophy, presented at the Weymouth Regatta in 1828, has exciting scenes of yacht-racing around its neck. Such scenes were transferable and established silver firms like Barnards and Elkingtons, advertised cups which could be ‘embossed for any sport’.

  • Chess men

    Chess men, silver and silver-gilt, England, around 1670, Museum no. 60-1993

    These chess pieces are miniature sculptures in their own right. Each king, queen and horse's head has been carefully moulded to look realistic; the queen even has a slightly haughty expression on her face!

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