My Family Silver

‘Sir Roger de Coverley and the Gipsies,’ a silver group made in the workshops of Joseph Angell, London, about 1850, inspired by Joseph Addison’s tale, which first appeared in The Spectator, 21 July 1711.
The much-loved character of Sir Roger would have been familiar to many, his exploits having been reprinted several times during the 18th and 19th Centuries. He also featured in Sir Roger de Coverley; or, The Merry Christmas, a dramatic entertainment produced at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in 1746; and in Sir Roger de Coverley; or, The Widow and Her Wooers, a drama at the Olympic Theatre in 1851. Furthermore, the artists Thomas Stothard (who sometime provided designs for silver to Rundell, Bridge & Rundell) and Charles Robert Leslie had both chosen ‘Sir Roger de Coverley and the Gipsies’ as a subject for paintings, the latter winning praise for his at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1829.
(photo: unknown, circa 1853)

The production of so-called ‘narrative’ plate – pieces which ‘tell a story’ - was by no means confined to England, but it was in London during much of the 19th century that silversmiths produced some of the best examples. Scenes of bucolic peace or episodes from the myths of Antiquity had decorated silver cups, cream jugs and boxes and dishes for generations, but it was probably the appearance of Flaxman’s ‘Shield of Achilles‘ in 1821, with its wide border of figures inspired by Homer’s Iliad, that began a fashion for finely wrought objects that were intended to elevate mere silver and silver-gilt into precious works of art.

Rundell’s, the firm responsible for the ‘Shield of Achilles,’ was inevitably involved in the manufacture of other such pieces, such as the ‘Crecy Shield’ (William Bateman, London, 1834), but it was in the hands of Garrard’s and Storr & Mortimer/Hunt & Roskell’s designers and craftsmen that in the 1840s and 1850s the genre flourished. Both firms displayed magnificent examples at the Great Exhibition of 1851, most of which had been made as testimonials or race ‘cups,’ but a worthy, less celebrated entrant to this field was Joseph Angell. With his silver group, ‘Sir Roger de Coverley and the Gipsies,’ made from models by John Henning junior, he had hit upon an old, familiar subject that with nostalgic warmth recalled the age before factories and speeding locomotives. As the Athenaeum remarked approvingly, ‘Mr. Angell could not have chosen a scene more thoroughly English than this.’

• Various items of interest are currently listed on myfamilysilver.com, including pieces from Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, William Bateman, Garrard’s, Paul Storr, Mortimer & Hunt and Hunt & Roskell

a photograph of Hunt & Roskell’s display of silver race cups, candelabra, testimonials, wine coolers, &c,
at the International Exhibition of 1862, South Kensington, London;
a number of the pieces shown are known to have survived
Hunt & Roskell was the commercial successor to (Paul) Storr & Mortimer.
(photo: The London Stereoscopic & Photographic Co Ltd, London, 1862)

Ask any commercial photographer and he will tell you that the most challenging objects he has to capture are those made of silver: they dazzle or vanish into black or white backgrounds. Probably the very first photograph ever taken of silver, a calotype by William Henry Fox Talbot made between 1844 and 1846, shows the problem to perfection: a pair 1750s candlesticks, an Elkington coffee pot, &c, are harsh combinations of darkness and brightness. Although the same disappointing results were achieved of silver by the photographers who recorded some exhibits at the Great Exhibition of 1851, there are plenty of photographs surviving from the second half of the 19th Century which prove just how useful a medium photography became to the silver and jewellery trades.

The archive of Edward Barnard & Sons, the London manufacturing silversmiths, includes an extraordinary photographic record (circa 1850-1940) of the firm’s work. An unknown number of photographs were sent by Victorian manufacturers and retained by the Patent Office in their registration of copyright designs. Photographs were taken at most exhibitions, large and small, many of the most successful being those made by The London Stereoscopic & Photographic Co Ltd at the International Exhibition in 1862. Photography was even harnessed at that early period by manufacturers for illustrated trade catalogues, although such publications must have been expensive to produce.

Photography also became a pleasant way to record a gift of silver, sometimes with the recipient in evidence, for distribution to subscribers or for sale in local shops.

a page of  die-stamped ‘Sterling Silver Novelties’ from the
CATALOG AND PRICE LIST OF DIAMOND, GOLD AND PLATED JEWELRY AND SILVER THINGS
published by Robert S. Gatter, maker, 19 Maiden Lane, New York City, 1900
(photo: unknown, 1900)

• Various items of interest are currently listed on myfamilysilver.com, including items made by the following silversmiths: Hunt & Roskell, Paul Storr, Elkington & Co and Edward Barnard & Sons
  

a selection of gold and silver whip handles shown by Swaine & Adeney and Sangster,
both of London, at the Great Exhibition of 1851;
the design of the central example, by Swaine & Adeney,
was emblematic of the Exhibition, with figures representing the four quarters of the globe
(from The Illustrated Exhibitor, London, 6 December 1851, p. 510,
and The Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue, London, 1851, p. 313)

A visitor to the Great Exhibition of 1851 thought few gentlemen there ‘and possibly few of the ladies’ could have failed to admire the handsome show of riding whips by English, French, Belgian, Spanish and American manufacturers. The best whips were, and always had been, silver- (or gold-) mounted and the different types, from strong whips for coachmen to those for children, were legion. So too were patterns: Mrs Barnard, a whipmaker of Fleet Street, was indignant when in 1766 some of the best of her stock was stolen, including one ‘mounted with treble Silver Engine turned buttons [and] a Diamond-buttoned Jockey, the Handle of each Silver stitched.’

While in 1821 a London jeweller, John Brogden, was prosecuted for thrashing another member of the trade with his whip, most were used for legitimate purposes and, unsurprisingly in that age of universal equine transport, were everywhere in evidence. Swaine & Adeney, whipmakers to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and probably the busiest of the London firms, was represented at many international exhibitions; ‘Blessed is the steed on whose fleet flanks such whips are ornamentally applied!’ thought one New Yorker when the firm showed there in 1853.

The more expensive whips were sometimes very elaborate, made from combinations of exotic materials including clarified rhinoceros hide and carved ivory. Chowrie riding whips with fly-whisk horse-hair plumes for use in India were a staple item, and in 1851 William Slark of Burlington Arcade sold flexible rubber whips mounted in turquoise-set gold.

two celebrated Victorian equestrian performers with whips: Louis Francisco, trainer and rider (circa 1862),
and Jenny Louise Hengler, noted as ‘a graceful exponent of haute ėcole riding‘ (circa 1872)
(photos: John Culme’s Footlight Notes Collection)

• Several items items of equestrian interest are currently featured on myfamilysilver.com.