Four oblong salad dishes
Frederick Kandler
Category
Silver
Date
1753 - 1754
Materials
Sterling silver
Measurements
2.9 x 31.4 x 23.2 cm
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Ickworth, Suffolk
NT 852094
Summary
Four oblong salad dishes, sterling silver, by Frederick Kandler, London, 1753/4. Each indented rectangular dish is raised and has multiple creases to the deep sides following the applied shaped rim with inverted corners which is cast and consists of bands of moulding and gadrooning between shells. There is a shell at the centre of each side and at the corners are four larger shells with upturned ends, flanked by rosettes and bound by a line of pearls. Heraldry: The centre of each dish is engraved with the quartered shield, supporters and motto of the 2nd Earl of Bristol within an ermine mantling and beneath an earl’s coronet. Hallmarks: Each dish is fully marked on the underside with the leopard’s head, date letter ‘s’, lion passant and maker’s mark ‘FK’ in italics beneath a fleur-de-lis (Arthur Grimwade, London Goldsmiths 1697-1837, 1990, no. 691). Scratchweights: ‘No 1 [/] 28″0’, ‘No 2 [/] 28″6’, ‘No 3 [/] 29 6’ and ‘No 4 [/] 29″18’.
Full description
Deep dishes of this general shape – with indented sides and creased, inverted corners – were usually known from the 1760s as ‘pincushion dishes’. Thus they are referred to from the mid 1760s in the Jewel Office records and in the Parker and Wakelin Ledgers, [1] as well as in the 1811 Bristol plate list. [2] When made, however, it is probable that they were intended as salad dishes and would have been known as such, to be used alongside the circular versions already in existence (NT 852062). There would thus have been eight available for use on the 2nd Earl’s table and that accords with the norm for the time, the 9th Earl of Exeter, for instance, receiving ‘4 square sallets & 4 round ditto’ from George Wickes and Samuel Netherton in 1756.[3] Further evidence for their intended use is provided by Sir Ralph Milbanke, 5th Bt’s receipt in 1765 from Wickes and Netherton’s successors, John Parker and Edward Wakelin, of ‘4 Nurl’d heart Corner’d Sallad Dishes’, weighing 83 oz 2dwt and costing £31 3s 4d.[4] Dishes of the ‘pincushion’ form seem to have made their first appearance in England around 1750, perhaps the earliest surviving being four of 1751 by Thomas Heming.[5] These are of the more common and simpler design, without shaped rims and intermediate folds (see NT 852067). The source was probably France, as usual, and a plain pincushion shape is included amongst dish outlines on plate 51 of Pierre Germain’s Éléments d’orfèvrerie published in Paris in 1748. The enriched, Ickworth version may have been Kandler’s own invention, seeming to hark back to the Germanic baroque forms of Charles Kandler, and relating also to his own multi-faceted tureens (see NT 852127).[6] The square dishes by Edward Wakelin of 1762 made to augment the Leinster dinner service, and presumably supplied through Parker and Wakelin, are a rather less successful attempt at the same thing with their intermediary folds arranged outwards and appearing as creases.[7] The early nineteenth century baize bag, probably supplied by Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, survives and is entitled ‘4 O[B]LONG DISHES’ (not currently catalogued). James Rothwell, Decorative Arts Curator April 2021 [Adapted from James Rothwell, Silver for Entertaining: The Ickworth Collection, London 2017, cat. 48, p. 132.] Notes: [1] The National Archives, LC 9/45, Jewel Office Delivery Book, 1732–93, f. 216, 29 October 1765, Thomas Pelham as Comptroller of the King’s Household received 4 gadrooned pincushion dishes weighing 100oz 12 dwt; National Art Library, Garrard Ledgers, VAM 7 1765–75, f. 66, 6 October 1766, the 4th Viscount Howe acquired ‘4 Hatt [probably triangular] & 4 Pincushion Comport Dishes’. [2] Suffolk Record Office, 941/75/1, list of plate of the 5th Earl (later 1st Marquess) of Bristol 1811-29. [3] National Art Library, Garrard Ledgers, VAM 6 1756–60, f. 1. [4] Ibid, VAM 7 1765–75, f. 22. [5] Christie’s, 27 March 1968, lot 173. [6] He continued to produce dishes in this form, as those sold Sotheby’s, 22 March 1979, lot 122. [7] Sotheby’s, 23 May 1985, lot 92.
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