Four circular salad dishes
Frederick Kandler
Category
Silver
Date
1751 - 1752
Materials
Sterling silver
Measurements
3.8 cm (Height); 27.9 cm (Diameter)
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Ickworth, Suffolk
NT 852062
Summary
Four circular salad dishes, sterling silver, by Frederick Kandler, London, 1751/2. The dishes are raised with chased spiral ribs commencing on the outer edges of the base and rising up the sides. The shaped rims have cast and chased shell, leaf and gadroon borders. Heraldry: In the centre of each dish is engraved the quartered shield, supporters and motto of the 2nd Earl of Bristol in an ermine mantling and beneath an earl’s coronet. Hallmarks: All fully marked on the underside with leopard’s head, date letter ‘q’, maker’s mark ‘FK’ in italics beneath a fleur-de-lis (Arthur Grimwade, London Goldsmiths 1697-1837, 1990, no. 691) and lion passant. Scratchweights: ‘N1 [/] 25=11’, ‘N2 [/] 26=11’, ‘N3 [/] 26=17’ and ‘N4 [/] 26=18’.
Full description
These dishes are recorded in the 1811 plate list [1] as ‘Sallad Dishes’ which was the term applied throughout the eighteenth century to such ribbed vessels.[2] They were used for both cooked vegetables and what we now know as salads,[3] the ribs presumably allowing water to drain from the leaves. As such they would have accompanied the second course of dinner or supper.[4] Fruit may well also have been served in them, some of those of apparently the same form provided by the Jewel Office being specified as ‘fruit dishes’ early in the century.[5] It was probably the subsequent, often exclusive adoption of this type of vessel as part of the dessert service that resulted in them becoming known as ‘strawberry dishes’, by which name they are still regularly catalogued today. That term never took hold with the Herveys but the pieces certainly became associated with dessert as they were, perhaps uniquely, described as ‘jelly dishes’ in the 1874 plate list.[6] In some cases, by the mid eighteenth century, salad dishes were having feet added but this was by no means exclusive as is proved by these examples and many others surviving without.[7] From their inception in the 1690s salad dishes had tended to have scalloped sides and no horizontal rims, making them particularly distinct from the other tableware with its generally simple outlines, but that changed with the advent of shaped plates and dishes in the late 1730s (see cat. 32 and 35), and a good early example of the new form is seen in a pair by Paul de Lamerie of 1742 sold by Sotheby’s in 1987.[8] The cast gadroon borders on the Ickworth salad dishes are further enriched with shells, this pattern having been introduced in the early 1740s and being seen on sauce boats by Kandler of 1744 (see cat. 30) and a set of plates by Paul de Lamerie of 1745.[9] Shells large and small were successfully employed throughout the Earl of Bristol’s dinner service to unify new and old pieces and varying forms. Salad dishes tended to be supplied in pairs, fours and eights and by the mid century larger sets were sometimes provided in a combination of round and oval shape, George Wickes supplying Admiral Byng with ‘4 Round & 4 Ovell Sallett Dishes’ in May 1749 and the Dowager Duchess of Somerset with two of each in the same month.[10] Thus Lord Bristol’s adoption of the epergne dish and its new pair (cat. 28) for salad dishes would have been quite in keeping with the trends of the time and would have provided him with a respectable total of six for his table. James Rothwell, Decorative Arts Curator February 2021 [Adapted from James Rothwell, Silver for Entertaining: The Ickworth Collection, London 2017, cat. 31, p. 110.] Notes: [1] Suffolk Record Office, 941/75/1, list of plate belonging to the 5th Earl and 1st Marquess of Bristol, 1811-40. [2] There are constant references to salad, or ‘Sallett’, dishes in the Wickes Ledgers and the Jewel Office records. [3] Christopher Hartop, The Huguenot Legacy: English Silver 1680-1760, 1996, p. 168. [4] Vincent La Chapelle, The modern cook, 1733, plate VII. [5] National Archives, LC 9/44, Jewel Office Delivery Book 1698–1732, f. 253, 6 June 1721, christening present to Viscount Howe of ‘four Gilt Scollopt fruite Dishes’ weighing 120 oz. [6] Suffolk Record Office, 941/75/4, Bristol Plate List 1874b. [7] For example, a pair also by Kandler of 1749 sold at Christie’s, 24 March 1965, lot 79. [8] Sotheby’s, 26 April 1987, lot 187. [9] Christie’s, 14 December 1962, lot 140. [10] National Art Library, Garrard Ledgers, VAM 3 1747–50, ff. 83 and 86.
Provenance
George Hervey, 2nd Earl of Bristol (1721-75); by descent to the 4th Marquess of Bristol (1863-1951); accepted by the Treasury in lieu of death duties in 1956 and transferred to the National Trust.
Credit line
Ickworth, the Bristol Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Frederick Kandler, goldsmith