Desk seal matrix bearing the coat of arms of a member of the Gregory family of Northamptonshire

Folger bibliographic ID: 354354
Folger call number: Z.d.36
Folger holdings ID: 502579
Accession Number: 270646

General notes

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Condition note

Metal object: handle with gloves

Item information about Folger Z.d.36

From dealer's description: "Desk seal matrix, brass (length 6.3cm) with a matrix at both ends (one with full heraldic achievement, diameter 2.6cm, one with escutcheon only, diameter 2.3cm, both in reverse), light wear to extremities, in a very good state of preservation. This seventeenth century English heraldic brass desk seal matrix was made for a member of the Gregory family of Northamptonshire, perhaps a lawyer named Richard Gregory of Harleston in Northamptonshire. The coat of arms can in any case be idenfitifed as belonging to a descendant of the marriage in the fourteenth century of William Gregory who married Alice daughter and heir of Robert de Cawley of Warwickshire, (see: Camden, William, The visitation of the county of Leicester in the year 1619, London, 1870, pp.187-188). The sealing of letters with wax was a ubiquitous aspect of early modern correspondence, however relatively few seal matrices of this kind have survived." Ordered from Samuel Gedge, D 9208, 2018-05-21, catalog 26, item 20