Twelve salts
Frederick Kandler (d.1778)
Category
Silver
Date
1752 - 1753
Materials
Sterling silver
Measurements
6.4 cm (height); 10.5 cm (diam. at rim)
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Ickworth, Suffolk
NT 852086
Summary
Four of the twelve were stolen prior to 2001. If you have any information concerning these items please contact the National Trust at Ickworth House on 01284 736123. Or contact the Operational Risk Department of the National Trust by email at operationalrisk@nationaltrust.org.uk, or our Supporter Services Centre on 0344 800 1895 or by email enquiries@nationaltrust.org.uk. You can provide your information anonymously. Thank you for your help. Twelve salts, sterling silver, by Frederick Kandler, London, 1752/3. Each of the circular bowls is cast and has an applied calyx of eleven cast and chased stiff leaves. The octagonal gadroon border with shells and leaves alternating at the corners is cast and applied. The circular, stepped feet, which is cast in vertical halves and chased, has an outer band of overlapping leaves and an inner band of gadrooning. The trumpet-shaped stem is raised. Heraldry: Between two of the stiff leaves of the body of each salt is engraved the Hervey crest beneath an earl’s coronet. Hallmarks: Of the eight salts surviving at Ickworth No. 6 (852086.6) is fully marked on the outside of the foot rim with the lion passant, date letter ‘r’, leopard’s head and maker’s mark ‘FK’ in italics beneath a fleur-de-lis (Arthur Grimwade , London Goldsmiths 1697-1837, 1990, no. 691). Nos. 1-5 (852086.1-4 & 7) and 7-8 (852086.5 & 8) have the lion passant, date letter ‘r’ and leopard’s head but either lack a maker’s mark or it is only partial and mostly indecipherable. Scratchweights (of those surviving at Ickworth): ‘1 [/] 9=5’, ‘2 [/] 9=16’, ‘3 [/] 10=3’, ‘4 [/] 10=5’, ‘5 [/] 10=5’, ‘6 [/] 9=18’, ‘7 [/] 10=1’ and ‘No 8 [/] 10=2’.
Full description
This form of salt appears to have been developed by the Huguenot silversmiths in London without a French precedent and the earliest examples, from the late 1720s, bear the maker’s marks of Anne Tanqueray and her brother-in-law David Willaume II.[1] It remained popular into the 1760s, being referred to by George Wickes as the ‘leaf salt’.[2] Kandler’s version for Lord Bristol differs from the basic model in having a plain, trumpet stem and an octagonal gadroon and shell rim, the latter allowing it to blend with the rest of the Earl’s dinner service. The full set extends to twelve, the other four having been stolen c.2000. If Lord Bristol had been entertaining twenty-four to dinner the salts would have been placed between each pair of covers. It was not the usual practice to gild the inside of salts in the mid eighteenth century to protect from corrosion and the Wickes Ledgers reveal that most sets were instead supplied with glass liners. The Earl of Kildare acquired ‘16 salt glasses’ for eight salts in 1747 at a cost of £1 12s and the Marquess of Granby, three years later, had the same quantity for his ten new salts at the considerably lower cost of 12s, presumably reflecting a less complex form.[3] It was common for the number of liners to exceed the salts, allowing for breakages which must have been frequent given the absence of surviving examples. For the associated salt spoons see NT 852074.1-12. James Rothwell, Decorative Arts Curator February 2021 [Adapted from James Rothwell, Silver for Entertaining: The Ickworth Collection, London 2017, cat. 46, p. 130.] Notes: [1] Timothy Schroder, British and Continental Gold and Silver in the Ashmolean Museum, 2009, p. 314 and James Lomax, British Silver at Temple Newsam and Lotherton Hall, 1992, p. 87. [2] National Art Library, Garrard Ledgers, VAM 5 1750–4, f. 130. Colonel Sotherby received ‘6 Leave Salts’ on 18 October 1752, charged at £14 13s for the silver and £3 3s for making. [3] National Art Library, Garrard Ledgers, VAM 3 1747–50, ff. 1 and 164. An early instance of internal gilding is that of the ‘6 Boat Salts’ supplied to Sir Ralph Milbanke, 5th Bt, in 1765. See VAM 7 1765–75, f. 22. Exhibited: Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, Florida, 1959 (four); British Week, Milan and Frankfurt, 1965 (four).
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 (d.1778), goldsmith