A JAMES I SILVER TWO-HANDLED 'OX EYE' CUP

The present ‘Ox-eye’ cup pre-dates the previously earliest known example, the ‘Northampton cup’ of circa 1616, owned by the Worshipful Company of Mercers, originally given to Trinity Hospital, Greenwich, by Thomas, Earl of Arundel. This form of drinking vessel was widely used at the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. A set of twelve were recorded amongst the plate of Queen’s College, Oxford, dating to 1677.
M. Clayton, The Collector’s Dictionary of the Silver and Gold of Great Britain and North America, Woodbridge, 1985, pp. 122-3.