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Lot Essay
There seem to be two distinct services making up what is known as the Mildmay service - that with gadrooned borders, such as the present example, and that with moulded borders, such as a set of twelve dinner-plates in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (B. Carver Wees, English, Scottish and Irish Silver at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, New York, 1997, p. 153).
There has long been some question as to whether the pieces with a moulded border had be subject to an alteration. B. Carver Wees notes '[t]hese suspicions were largely based on the [dinner] plates having lost nearly 15 percent of their original scratch weight. Subsequent testing of the metal, however, indicates no discrepancy' (op. cit., p. 153). The existence of an inventory of 1739 of Lord Fitzwalter's plate does little to solve the mystery as it records weights, as of 1739, but does not provide a physical description. The present dish is recorded in the inventory under the series of eight plates, each engraved 'No 3'. C. Hartop notes that 'the larger circular dishes in the service... appear not to have been numbered consecutively but grouped in sizes' (Geometry and the Silversmith: The Domcha Collection, Cambridge, 2008, p. 88.
The plate from the Domcha Collection is hallmarked for 1737 so it seems possible that the original service, as ordered in 1725, had gadrooned borders and that a second service with moulded borders was ordered in 1737. It would not be unusual for items no longer in use to be exchanged for newly wrought plate and so it may well be that some of the 1725 gadrooned service was simply reshaped by de Lamerie as part of a larger order. This would go some way to explaining the difference in the actual weight of the dinner-plates in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute against their engraved scratchweights.
There has long been some question as to whether the pieces with a moulded border had be subject to an alteration. B. Carver Wees notes '[t]hese suspicions were largely based on the [dinner] plates having lost nearly 15 percent of their original scratch weight. Subsequent testing of the metal, however, indicates no discrepancy' (op. cit., p. 153). The existence of an inventory of 1739 of Lord Fitzwalter's plate does little to solve the mystery as it records weights, as of 1739, but does not provide a physical description. The present dish is recorded in the inventory under the series of eight plates, each engraved 'No 3'. C. Hartop notes that 'the larger circular dishes in the service... appear not to have been numbered consecutively but grouped in sizes' (Geometry and the Silversmith: The Domcha Collection, Cambridge, 2008, p. 88.
The plate from the Domcha Collection is hallmarked for 1737 so it seems possible that the original service, as ordered in 1725, had gadrooned borders and that a second service with moulded borders was ordered in 1737. It would not be unusual for items no longer in use to be exchanged for newly wrought plate and so it may well be that some of the 1725 gadrooned service was simply reshaped by de Lamerie as part of a larger order. This would go some way to explaining the difference in the actual weight of the dinner-plates in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute against their engraved scratchweights.