Accession Number

1987.005.0001

Alternate object names

Dish;Serving Dish

Creation Date

circa 1600

Description

Atocha passenger doña Isabel de Pernía, a long-time resident of Spanish Peru, was shipping 35 ½ pounds of assorted silverware on the galleon, including this plain, circular plate. Her personal mark, “Doña Yçabel,” is crudely cut into the underside of the molded brim. Traces of two royal tax stamps found on the plate show that the required 20% export duty had been paid on the piece.

Exhibition Label

Case/Object Caption (2023):

Plates

Silver was so readily available in South America that eating off silver plates would have been common in affluent households. Despite the everyday use of silver in the colonies, passengers on the 1622 Fleet were aware that it was more valuable in Spain, where it could be melted down or sold by weight.

Several of the passengers marked their tableware with their names or initials, making sure that items did not go stray either in the cargo hold or while dining at sea. Doña Isabel de Pernía was one such careful traveler. Two of these plates bear her name, scratched into their rims. She had left Spain with her husband in 1598 but, after he died, she made the decision to return home. She was bringing back two hundred pounds of silver, including several silver bars.

Several of these plates bear tax stamps and others show owners’ marks such as the one marked with a distinctive upper case letter “V” on its back.


Plates
Silver (c.1620)
Gifts of Jamestown Inc., D. Lloyd Hunter

1986.008.0160, 1986.008.0191, 1986.008.0748, 1986.008.0950, 1986.008.0984, 1986.008.0985, 1986.008.1762, 1987.005.0001, 1998.008.0001