Page 101 - Hodroff Collection January 2019 SaleCat

PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE FORT LIGONIER ASSOCIATION
496
A VERY RARE 'BEGGAR'S BENNISON' ARMORIAL PUNCHBOWL Founded in Anstruther, Scotland, and originally comprised of local gentry
QIANLONG PERIOD, CIRCA 1765 and merchants, the Society spawned branches in such places as Edinburgh
With the arms probably of Sir Thomas Wentworth (5th and last baronet) front and London and its membership grew to include churchmen, aristocrats
and back, on the sides and in the interior a roundel inscribed THE BEGGAR'S and even royals. George IV was an honorary member and reputedly gave the
BENNISON enclosing the Society's crest Society a locket of his own mistress’s ginger pubic hairs in a silver snuf box.
15¡ in. (39 cm.) diameter
The toast 'Beggar's Bennison' outlasted
$30,000–50,000 the Society at London male gatherings,
but the Society did not survive the more
PROVENANCE: prudish mores of Victorian times.
Sotheby's London, 27 October 1922.
The collection of Sir Algernon Tudor-Craig (1873-1943). Sir Thomas Wentworth (1726-92)
With W. Waddingham, Harrowgate, London (as of 1974). was a famous libertine of the day.
Acquired from the above by a distinguished Mid-Atlantic private collector. Never married, he is believed to have
By whom donated to the Fort Ligonier Museum, 1976.
fathered ten illegitimate children. His
self-professed interests were hunting,
LITERATURE:
Published by D.S. Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain (vol. I), p. 263 horses and horse racing, drinking, women
and improving his estate at Bretton
From 1732 to 1836 ‘The Most Ancient and Most Puissant order of the Beggar’s Hall. He inherited his maternal uncle's
Benison and Merryland, Anstruther’ - better known as 'The Beggar's Bennison fortune in 1777 and, as a condition of
Society' - honored licentiousness with libertine rituals and hedonistic the inheritance, took his uncle's name,
celebrations. Like the better known 'Hellfre Club', which only lasted a few Blackett. The
Connoisseurs, 1799, by T. Rowlandson
decades in several diferent iterations, the Beggar's Bennison Society was a
gathering place for Georgian male society, where unrestrained sexuality was Anstruther was a port town and its wealth came from sea trade augmented
accompanied by the more ordinary pleasures of fellowship and camaraderie. by smuggling. The Society's badge, with its phallus shown against an anchor
'Merryland' meant the female body, a land to be visited; the beggar's and suspending a purse, probably refers to these activities. A number of
'bennison', or 'blessing', referenced the story of a grateful beggar blessing objects displaying this device survive - pewter basins, glass receptacles,
King James V, saying "....may your horn [always] be in bloom". etcetera - but this punchbowl is unique.

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