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

the Goodwood Cup of 1869, Edward Barnard & Sons, London, 1869, for the retail goldsmith, J.W. Benson of 25 Old Bond Street, London, ‘a magnificent Old English Silver Tankard and Cover, modelled by Mr. J.E. Boehm, the subject being taken from Frith’s celebrated painting of ”The Derby Day,” [it] is wrought out with consummate skill, both in the modelling and chasing, the figures being oxidized on a pearl white back-ground… (Jackson’s Oxford Journal, Oxford, London, Saturday, 31 July 1869, p. 3e)
The image on the right shows the piece as it was in 1977; that on the left as it probably originally appeared in 1869.
(photo: courtesy of Sotheby’s, London: Mentmore sale, 23 May 1977, lot 1666)

Looking at the photograph in my last blog of Hunt & Roskell’s display at the 1862 International Exhibition, one could be forgiven for thinking that the lighting was amiss; the silver is so snowy white. In fact, this image records perfectly how most display plate would have appeared . The prevailing fashion was to ‘colour’ silver in some way, either by frosting (as in the Hunt & Roskell display) or by combinations of gilding, partly gilding (known as parcel-gilding), pearling or oxidizing, the latter producing a black surface.

Techniques for colouring silver (and gold) were developed in antiquity and have been used in various ways ever since. In modern times, the silversmith’s everyday repertoire included interesting finishes for his work. Silver-gilt, because of its relative durability, has survived in great quantities; but silver objects treated with heat, acids or other agents to produce black, white and coloured tints are much more delicate. A rare 1760s, London-made blackened silver cup  appeared at auction a few years ago only to create confusion because its unusual colour was nearly mistaken for ordinary tarnish.

Some French and Russian silversmiths at the Great Exhibition of 1851 caused considerable comment for their unusual oxidized work, whereas English silversmiths relied mostly on the contrast of brightly polished areas juxtaposed with dead white frosting.

The possibility of colouring silver may not be familiar to many, but Richard Hughes and Michael Rowe have dealt splendidly with the subject in their book, The Colouring, Bronzing and Patination of Metals (1991).

two marine pattern silver salts in the manner of Nicholas Sprimont (1716-1771),
created with naturalistically-coloured silver crayfish and crab by Smith & Harris, manufacturing goldsmiths and silversmiths, London, and shown at the ‘Supermodels’ exhibition, Goldsmiths’ Hall, 2001
(photo: courtesy of Smith & Harris, London)

• various items from the workshops of Hunt & Roskell and Edward Barnard & Sons are currently listed on myfamilysilver.com 
  

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
  

Harry Emanuel’s new premises, Brook Street, Hanover Square, London (The Illustrated London News, London, Saturday, 17 November 1860, p. 455); although somewhat altered, No. 2 Brook Street still stands and is presently the headquarters of the United National Bank

The humming bird necklace I mentioned last week was devised by Harry Emanuel, one of the most remarkable figures of the London silver and jewellery trade. He caused a sensation at the 1867 Paris Exhibition by his display of  the silver mechanical swan which so delighted Mark Twain and which still thrills visitors today to the Bowes Museum, County Durham.

Emanuel was not 25 when in 1855 he took over the family business. Although it was already successful he determined that it should rival the leading firms of Garrard’s, Hunt & Roskell and Hancock’s. Few were surprised when in 1860 he opened new premises in Brook Street, Mayfair,  decorated in the Elizabethan style, its ebony cabinets filled with every conceivable type of wrought gold, silver, jewellery, object of vertu and enamels. The focus of the showroom was an ornamental stove like a gigantic flower vase brimming with hot-house plants. For a man who sold humming bird necklaces and persuaded the Sultan of Turkey to purchase a jewelled gold-mounted ivory stereoscope, nothing was too exotic.

Harry Emanuel himself was an exotic. His fortune made, partly from South African diamonds, he sold his business. In 1874 he purchased a Portuguese title, that of the Baron de Almeda, and removed to Paris with his wife where they lived in great luxury. In 1880 he agreed to represent the impoverished San Dominican state as Minister Plenipotentiary to France, which of course opened many doors, social and political. He died at Nice in 1898.

the parcel-gilt silver centrepiece from a table service, designed by G.A. Carter and made by Hunt & Roskell, London, in the early 1880s; presented to T.H. Ismay of the White Star Line on 16 September 1885 (from an original Woodburytype)

As a child my favourite story was Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Samuel Whiskers; it terrified me! Nowadays the evil protagonists remind me more of Count Fosco and his horrible Countess than farmyard rats. Be that at it may, the authoress herself as little more than a child encountered some rat-catching cats of the town variety when she went to Hunt & Roskell’s London silver factory. Her account, committed in code to her diary, is fascinating but one thing she did notice was that it looked as if no dusting had been done since the building opened, which, by the way, was under Paul Storr in 1819.

Beatrix’s visit was in 1881. In a small, shabby studio she found a man ‘in velvet cloak edged with fur, red flannel slippers and dirty white stockings’ sitting solemnly upon a table. He was standing in for the great explorer Vasco da Gama, one of the figures (the others being Jason, Columbus and Captain Cook) which had been chosen by the designer, G.A. Carter, on a centrepiece for a parcel-gilt silver table service to be presented to Thomas Henry Ismay, founder and senior partner of the White Star Line.

The theme of this service was Navigation and Carter, about whom very little is known but who worked for Hunt & Roskell between about 1862 and 1889, was discovered by the young Beatrix at the very moment of his working on the da Gama plaster model.

For a related item listed on myfamilysilver.com, see: A George III silver coffee jug on stand, Paul Storr, London, 1807