Four dishes with lobed ends and shell handles, and four covers
Frederick Kandler
Category
Silver
Date
circa 1751 - 1769
Materials
Silver
Measurements
4.4 x 42.2 x 25.4 cm (dishes); 18.4 x 30.2 x 19.2 cm (covers)
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Ickworth, Suffolk
NT 852110
Summary
Four dishes with lobed ends and shell handles, silver, probably by Frederick Kandler, London, circa 1751, and four conforming dish covers, sterling silver, Frederick Kandler, London, 1768/9. The dishes are raised and have oval wells with broad rims, straight sides and indented, lobed ends. The cast gadroon borders with palm leaves are applied as are the cast and chased shell handles which cover the indents. The covers are raised and have stepped bases conforming to the dishes. The bases terminate in a chased band of gadrooning and the covers rise as oval convex domes to another chased gadroon band, then rise again in reverse form to an applied flat top plate, the joint concealed by a cast and seamed moulding. The cast and chased tendril handles are capped by single flowers and held on by silver bolts and nuts. 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. On the front of the covers are engraved the quartered arms of the Hanoverian monarchs (pre-1801) within the Garter and beneath an imperial crown flanked by the initials G R. Hallmarks: Dishes - There are no marks contemporary with the pieces as they now are. Nos. 1 and 2 have redundant hallmarks on the underside of their rims: leopard’s head, lion passant, date letter ‘F’ for 1721 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. 3 and 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). Covers - All are marked on the external face of the rim of the covers with maker’s mark ‘FK’ in italics beneath a fleur-de-lis (Grimwade 1990, no. 692), lion passant, leopard’s head and date letter ‘N’. Scratchweights: Dishes - ‘N1 [/] 38=14’ and [old] ‘Nº 2 = 33 = 11 [crossed through][/] 33″’; ‘N2 [/] 39=9’ and [old] ‘Nº 1 = 34 = 4 [crossed through][/] 33″ 17’; ‘N3 [/] 40=7’ and [old] ‘34=10’; ‘N 4 [/] 41=3’ and [old] ‘35=14’. Covers - ‘Nº 1 = 33 6’; ‘No 2 = 32=12’; ‘Nº 3 = 33=5’; ‘No- 4 - 33=7’
Full description
DISHES With the exception of the shell handles, which are accounted for in the additional five ounces of the altered scratchweights, these dishes survive exactly as they would have been when inherited from John, Lord Hervey on his death in 1743. The 2nd Earl of Bristol’s pragmatic and prudent approach to the transformation of his old plate is once again demonstrated, the addition of the shells proving highly effective and at considerably less expense than making anew. These pieces were thus rendered suitable to take their place alongside the other dishes of the dinner service, for use in the same manner as those of smaller size (see NT 852115). The dishes do, however, have greater complexity in their early history than is at first apparent, with those marked for 1721 clearly having been reshaped to some extent, the maker’s mark on one being distorted. This work probably took place in 1740 when the other two were made and is likely to have been mostly restricted to the addition of gadrooning which by that time would have been more de rigueur. Curiously the later dishes, one of which has been scientifically analysed, have bodies of Britannia standard, so they too must have been transformed from earlier pieces yet presumably to such an extent that Crespin felt obliged to have them hallmarked. He took quite a risk as it turns out, for the borders contain nearly ten per cent copper and are thus considerably below sterling, which the dishes are marked for.[1] The shape of the dishes, before the addition of the shell handles, is one of those illustrated in the 1736 edition of Vincent La Chapelle’s The modern cook.[2] COVERS Given that only eight of the twenty covers supplied in 1758 (see NT 852121 & 852115) survive, these four could be replacements for some of them, perhaps necessitated by damage or wear and tear. If that was the case it would explain the royal arms, but they could equally well have been engraved merely to match the existing covers. The covers would have been in place at the start of the meal and have been removed when the tureens were taken away to be replaced with the next set of principal dishes. In the painting of the coronation banquet of Joseph II as King of the Romans in Frankfurt in 1764,[3] all the subsidiary tables are shown with their dishes still covered whereas at the high table the Imperial couple have commenced their meal and two attendants are removing the covers and passing them to footmen. As dishes did not rest on the table in the same fashion for service à la russe the need for covers waned during the nineteenth century and many must have been turned in to be melted, making them rare today. They did still come into their own at breakfast, however, and one can be seen in use at Ickworth alongside dishes by Paul Storr in a photograph of c.1870. Silver dish-covers were never commonplace in the aristocratic household anyway and many families had some or all of them in silvered brass or copper, or even as mere pewter. William Strode, for instance, acquired a ‘Brass Dish Cover Silver’d’ from Wickes and Netherton in 1753 for £2 including engraving (the same thing in silver, assuming a weight of 30 oz., would have cost at least £12) and the vastly wealthy Sir Jacob Downing, 4th Bt, when equipping himself with a dinner service in 1750, had seventeen pewter covers with his twenty silver dishes.[4] James Rothwell, Decorative Arts Curator February 2021 [Adapted from James Rothwell, Silver for Entertaining: The Ickworth Collection, London 2017, cat. 38 & 88, pp. 119 & 177.] Notes: [1] Analysis carried out March–April 2015 at the London Assay Office by XRF and Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES). The border of dish no. 3 contains 0.219% gold, 0.048% bismuth, 0.143% lead, 9.919% copper, 0.004% tin and 0.003% antimony. [2] James Lomax, British Silver at Temple Newsam and Lotherton Hall, 1992, p. 94, ill. [3] Studio of Martin II Mytens, Schloss Schönbrunn, Austria. [4] National Art Library, Garrard Ledgers, VAM 5 1750–4, f. 110 and VAM 3 1747-50, f. 57.
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