MARK OF JOHN DUCK, LONDON, 1682

The mystery of the identity of this goldsmith, most famously struck on the Brownlow tankards and a number of other very high quality pieces, was solved by John Culme and published in the Jaime Ortiz-Patiño sale catalogue, The 'Goose in a Dotted Circle'; a Mystery of the Seventeenth Century Investigated, Sotheby's, 1992. Careful study of the records of the Goldsmiths' Company and contemporary marriage and death records, helped him to establish that John Duck was the apprentice of Roger Stevens (d.1673) and then his widow Katherine Stevens, becoming free in 1677. In 1678, he married Stevens' daughter Hannah, and took over the workshop.