Four medium and four large oval dishes with shell handles
Frederick Kandler
Category
Silver
Date
circa 1751 - 1769
Materials
Silver
Measurements
4.1 x 47 x 30.2 cm (medium dishes); 5.7 x 62.5 x 42.9 cm (large dishes)
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Ickworth, Suffolk
NT 852095
Summary
Four medium oval dishes, silver, probably by Frederick Kandler, London, circa 1751 and re-formed from earlier pieces, and four large oval dishes, sterling silver, by Frederick Kandler, London, 1768/9. The dishes are raised and have flat oval wells and broad rims with shaped borders applied with cast and chased gadrooning. Two large cast and chased shells are applied to each as handles. Heraldry: The rim of each dish is engraved with the quartered shield, supporters and motto of the 2nd Earl of Bristol in an ermine mantling and beneath an earl’s coronet. Hallmarks: Medium dishes (NT 852095.1-2 & 7-8) - No marks contemporary with the pieces as they now are. Nos. 1 and 8 (scratchweight nos. 2 & 1) are marked on the underside of the rim with the redundant date letter ‘S’ for 1733, leopard’s head, lion passant and maker’s mark ‘P∙C’ beneath a shell and above a mullet (Arthur Grimwade, London Goldsmiths 1697-1837, 1990, no. 2143a) for Paul Crespin. Nos. 2 and 7 (scratchweight numbers 3 & 4) are marked on the underside of the rim with the redundant date letter ‘e’ for 1740, leopard’s head, lion passant and maker’s mark ‘PC’ in italics (Grimwade 1990, no. 2149) for Paul Crespin (1739 registration). Large dishes (NT 852095.3-6) - All are marked on the underside of the rim with date letter ‘N’, leopard’s head, lion passant and maker’s mark ‘FK’ in italics beneath a fleur-de-lis (Grimwade 1990, no. 692). Scratchweights: Medium dishes (NT 852095.1-2 & 7-8) - ‘N1 [/] 43=9’ and [old] ‘No 2 [/] 37=1 [/] 36’; ‘N2 [/] 46=0 and [old] ‘No 1 39=0 [/] 38=7’; N3 [/] 49=12 and [old] 42=5’; ‘N4 [/] 50=2 and opposite [old] ‘42=18’. Large dishes (NT 852095.3-6) - ‘Nº= =1 [/] 105=5’; ‘Nº= 2 [/] 104=17’; ‘Nº 3 [/] 103=5’; ‘Nº=4 [/] 100=18’.
Full description
For general comments on this form of oval, shell-handled dish see NT 852080. MEDIUM DISHES (NT 852095.1-2 & 7-8) The difference of about 7½ oz between the new and old scratchweights is accounted for by the addition of the shells. They are some 2 oz heavier than the shells on the lobe-ended dishes (NT 852110) and constitute the middle of three sizes of shell handle employed on the Bristol dinner service, according to the scale of the overall piece. These dishes, being of the middling size, would probably have been used for the entrées of the first course, such as Vincent La Chapelle’s ‘Patridges the Spanish Way’ and ‘young Ducks with Orange-Juice’, and for the ‘Dishes of roast Fowl’ that might have come with the second course.[1] As with the lobe-ended dishes, these four are in the same form, apart from the shells, as when inherited by the 2nd Earl from his father in 1743. They are somewhat less complex in their earlier history as none appears to have been reshaped since the dates of their hallmarks. Analysis of dish no. 8 (scratchweight no. 1), however, does show that, once again, the body is of Britannia standard and the border well below sterling. Crespin was presumably, therefore, using old pieces but substantially re-forming them. The physical evidence of the addition of the shell handles c.1751 is clear when compared with the 1768 dishes (NT 852095.3-6) on which they were part of the original design. LARGE DISHES (NT 852095.3-6) These are the largest of Lord Bristol’s dishes and they would have been for the roasts which would have replaced soup during the first course of dinner, and also for the principal offerings of the second course. These at the 1st Viscount Jocelyn’s dinner of 1 July 1747 were ‘6 Grous Poults Lard[ed] and Barded’ at one end of the table and ‘4: feasant Poults: 2 Larded’ at the other (fig. 96).[2] Lord Bristol must have had a provision of large dishes prior to 1768, in addition to the two for which there were mazarines (NT 852080.1 & 3), and it would seem unlikely that they were lost in the evacuation from Madrid, as if so they would have been replaced earlier on. It could be that they were old anyway in 1751, adapted by the addition of shell handles, and that the heavy use in the subsequent two decades, plus long-distance transportation, led to the need to renew them. This is corroborated by the fact that the payment in Lord Bristol’s bank account which must relate to these and to four dish covers (NT 852110), £85 6s to Frederick Kandler on 13 March 1770,[3] is only about a third of what would have been needed. The rest must have been made up with old plate. James Rothwell, Decorative Arts Curator February 2021 [Adapted from James Rothwell, Silver for Entertaining: The Ickworth Collection, London 2017, cat. 40 & 87, pp. 121 & 176.] Notes: [1] Vincent La Chapelle, The Modern Cook, 1736, plate VII. [2] The Winterthur Library, Folio 219, Dinner Book of Robert, 1st Viscount Jocelyn, October 1740 to November 1751, f. 216. [3] Barclays Group Archives, Goslings ledgers, 130/43, f. 95.
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