MARK OF PAUL STORR, LONDON, 1810, RETAILED BY RUNDELL, BRIDGE AND RUNDELL

Details

AN IMPORTANT GEORGE III SILVER-GILT SURTOUT-DE-TABLE
MARK OF PAUL STORR, LONDON, 1810, RETAILED BY RUNDELL, BRIDGE AND RUNDELL
The three dessert-stands each on incurved triangular base, the two smaller with three sea-god masks the larger with dophins, each with applied fruit festoons between, the stem formed as three maenads with ribbon-tied thyrsi between, supporting on their heads a detachable basket, with pierced grapevine border, each engraved underneath with a coat-arms in reverse below an earl's coronet, the larger similarly engraved on each side, the smaller each engraved on each side with a crest below an earl's coronet, the mirror plateau in three sections, chased with fruiting grapevines, the stands each marked on bowl, top section, bases of figures, the stands and bases each marked underneath, the bottom plaque with engraved coats-of-arms apparently unmarked but engraved with inventory numbers, painted under one section of the mirror plateau with a weight '209"8'
the plateau 59 in. (150 cm.) wide
the larger stand 17¼ in. (44 cm.) high
weighable silver 534 oz. (16,616 gr.)
The arms are those of Belmore quartering Corry for Somerset, 2nd Earl of Belmore (1774-1841). His father Armar Lowry assumed the additional surname and arms of Corry and was elevated to the peerage of Ireland in 1781 as Baron Belmore of Castle Coole, Co. Fermanagh. The 2nd Earl was Custos Rotulorum of Co. Tyrone and sometime Governor-General of Jamaica. He married, in 1800, Juliana, second daughter of Henry-Thomas, 2nd Earl of Carrick. (4)

Provenance

Anonymous sale; Christie's, Geneva, 11 November 1975, lot 29.

Literature

J. B. Hawkins, Masterpieces of English and European Silver and Gold, Sydney, 1979, pp. 50-51.
J. B. Hawkins, The Al Tajir Collection of Silver and Gold, London, 1983, pp. 108-109.
The Glory of the Goldsmith, Magnificent Gold and Silver from the Al-Tajir Collection, 1989, p. 170.

Exhibited

Sydney, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Masterpieces of English and European Silver and Gold, January, 1980, no. 16.
London, Christie's, The Glory of the Goldsmith, Magnificent Gold and Silver from the Al-Tajir Collection, 1989, no. 131.

Sale room notice

Please note that the Mirror Plateau is dated 1819 not 1810.

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Lot Essay

Royal Goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge and Rundell produced figural dessert stands with slight variations in design. Rundell's album of designs at the Victoria and Albert Museum includes a centerpiece, attributed to E. H. Baily after a design by Thomas Stothard, featuring three bacchic nymphs supporting an openwork basket. A pair of silver-gilt dessert stands of 1810-11, also with bacchic figures set between crossed thrysi, formed part of the Duke of Wellington's Ambassadorial Service and remain at Apsley House (see N. M. Penzer, Paul Storr: The Last of the Goldsmiths, 1954 , pl. XXXIII, p. 144). Three silver-gilt dessert stands and a centerpiece with scroll candle branches of similar design to Wellington's plate by Paul Storr were formerly in the collection of Lillian and Morrie Moss (M. Moss, The Lillian and Morrie Moss Collection of Paul Storr Silver, 1972, pl. 65-66, pp. 128-29.

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