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Storr & Mortimer’s New York City branch
On March 23rd, 2011 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
a silver coffee pot and tea kettle on lampstand,
shown by Hunt & Roskell,
successors to Mortimer & Hunt (late Storr & Mortimer)
at the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, New York City, 1853,
where the firm’s exhibit was under the superintendence of
Charles Mogridge, one of Paul Storr’s former apprentices
(B. Silliman jr and C.R. Goodrich, editors,
The World of Science, Art, and Industry Illustrated
from Examples in the New-York Exhibition, 1853-54,
New York, 1854, pp.127/8)
Garrard’s, Hunt & Roskell, Joseph Angell and the relative newcomer, Elkington, Mason & Co of Birmingham, were the only English manufacturing and retail silversmiths of note to have have been represented at the New York Exhibition of 1853. Their stands were furnished with many of the objects they had shown two years earlier at the Great Exhibition in London. Thus Angell’s silver group, ‘Sir Roger de Coverley and the Gipsies‘ made its reappearance, as did Elkington’s silver electrotype race prize, ‘The Iliad Salver,’ another of which recently had been presented at a banquet by the working men of Birmingham to Charles Dickens.
It is not generally known, however, that of these important representatives of the English goldsmiths’ trade, only Hunt & Roskell had been in America before, albeit under its former name of Storr & Mortimer. This is a mysterious episode in the firm’s history. The senior partner, Paul Storr (1771-1844) had retired at the end of December 1838, when the remaining partners, John Mortimer (d.1871) and John Samuel Hunt (d.1865), continued trading as Mortimer & Hunt. During 1839 a branch establishment was opened under the old name of Storr & Mortimer at 20 Warren Street, New York City, which in the Spring of 1840 removed to 356 Broadway.
Unfortunately, the firm’s New York venture foundered and closed about the end of 1841. The cause is not precisely known but probably happened because of a muddle over United States’ import duty, which resulted in the partners being taken to court.
an advertisement for the New York City
branch of Storr & Mortimer
(Bentley’s Miscellany, New York, January 1841)
Sleight of hand: criminality and the silver and jewellery trades in 18th and 19th Century London
On November 18th, 2010 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
thieves’ gadgets found by British police
during their investigations in the early 1890s
(photo: The Strand Magazine, London, March 1894, p. 280)
During the past week I found this old photograph of custom-made gadgets for thieves to cut through shopfront shutters. It reminded me how much we owe to accounts of criminal activity in times past for information about the silver and jewellery trades, particularly in London during the 18th and 19th Centuries.
Gadgets aside, shoplifters needed no more than gall and ingenuity. In 1766, for instance, Elizabeth Godfrey (Benjamin Godfrey‘s widow) was relieved of a silver fruit basket by one John Smith who had simply put his hand into her shop window; he would have taken a silver butter shell and other things as well had he not been disturbed. From this we realize that the Godfreys (trading from the sign of the Hand, Ring & Crown, Norris Street, Haymarket) must have had retail premises as well as a workshop. In an earlier incident at Godfrey’s (1735) we hear that the firm, known to us now as makers of generally excellent silver, also sold gold rings and children’s corals (rattles). These reports furthermore give us the names of the Godfreys’ foreman (William Reynaldson) and one of their workmen (Henry Hobden).
On a lighter note, in 1794, some seven years before he married Elizabeth Beyer, there is a suggestion that Paul Storr, who at the time was working in Soho, took his shirts home to his mother in Tothill Fields to be laundered. Sarah Storr had put them out to dry on a line in the garden whence they had been stolen.
a George II silver basket, Benjamin Godfrey, London, 1746
(photo: Christie’s, Amsterdam, 14 June 2007, lot 133, €3,720)
For a number of items bearing the marks of Paul Storr and those of his commercial descendants, see myfamilysilver.com.
Gilbert Marks: an exceptional Arts & Crafts talent
On November 12th, 2009 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
a silver dish with a chased chrysanthemum design by Gilbert Marks
(The Studio, London, September, 1895, p.220)
Forty years ago the ‘big three’ among English silversmiths were still considered to be the two Pauls (de Lamerie and Storr) and Hester Bateman. They were also the first to have books written about them, probably because so much from their workshops had survived: de Lamerie in 1935, Storr in 1954 and Bateman in 1959. Of more recent silversmiths almost nothing was heard, except, perhaps, for Omar Ramsden whose work was celebrated by a centenary exhibition in Birmingham in 1973.
Since then, however, determined efforts have been made by many researchers to broaden our view of the British silver industry. The result has been to add further fascinating details to what was already known about de Lamerie, Bateman, Storr and Ramsden and their respective worlds, as well as to pull from relative obscurity the work of dozens more excellent firms and gifted individuals.
Gilbert Leigh Marks (1861-1905) is one independent silversmith, who in a career of only about ten years, managed to produce a body of finely made objects of lasting beauty. Early admirers warmed to his style; The Art Journal (1897), for instance, noticed the finish of his bowls, vases and beakers: ‘the dull yet exquisite grey of unpolished silver.’ The Studio (1895), agreed, adding that his pieces were ‘not over-ornamented, pleasant plain spaces being left which served to accentuate the beauty of the designs.’
Marks’s patterns were from nature: chased flowers, leaves and fruit against softly patinated surfaces, with occasional observations of fish leaping through water.
a silver bowl, chased with a design of salmon leaping through water, signed ‘Gilbert Marks 1898,’ an inscription on the interior records that it was given as a Cowes Regatta prize that year by Albert Edward, Prince of Wales; it realised £51,600, including premium, when sold at Bonhams, London, in July 2008
(photo: courtesy of Bonhams, London)
- Various items of interest are currently listed on myfamilysilver.com, including a Newcastle Guild of Handicrafts silver jardinière in the Arts & Crafts style, hallmarked, Birmingham, 1906.
A Somersetshire lad
On September 3rd, 2009 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
a printed paper trade label, ‘RUNDELL BRIDGE & RUNDELL Jewellers Goldsmiths Watch Makers &c TO HIS MAJESTY [George IV] His Royal Highness The Duke of York and ROYAL FAMILY [32] Ludgate Hill LONDON,’ 1820-1827
A letter appeared last week in the Metro, London’s popular free newspaper, wherein the writer expressed his doubt that Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem is Britain’s oldest pub. That honour, he said, was more likely to be held by The George at Norton St. Philip, Somerset. It appears that many an illustrious personage, from Samuel Pepys to the Duke of Monmouth, has quaffed a pint or two there. In a flight of fancy I wondered how many more had been enjoyed at The George by a local boy who grew up to be one of the wealthiest self-made men in England.
I refer to Philip Rundell, born at Norton St. Philip in 1746, who, via an apprenticeship with a jeweller in Bath, went on to become head of the celebrated royal goldsmiths, Rundell, Bridge & Rundell of Ludgate Hill, London. Between 1804 and his retirement in 1823 Rundell’s chief partners were his nephew Edmond Waller Rundell (1768?-1857), whose mother wrote that 19th Century publishing sensation, A New System of Domestic Cookery, and the urbane John Bridge (1755-1834).
At its height Rundell, Bridge & Rundell employed dozens, if not hundreds, of personnel: from the celebrated artist/designer John Flaxman (1755-1826) to humble plate polishers and pearl stringers. In manufactured silver alone the firm produced for a period at one workshop (Paul Storr superintending) some 10,000 ounces every month.
When Philip Rundell died in 1827 he astonished the world at large by leaving an estate valued at approximately £1 million.
- The following item currently listed by Koopman Rare Art at myfamilysilver.com is of special interest:
A George IV silver Dessert Bowl / Centrepiece, maker’s mark of Philip Rundell for Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, London, 1821
Beatrix Potter meets Vasco da Gama
On August 7th, 2009 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
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
Myfamilysilver.com: a model site for antiques
On July 28th, 2009 myfamilysilver wrote on the subject of Press and Media.
Not mine, writes Martyn Downer, but the words of respected US publication The Magazine Antiques. The article praises myfamilysilver.com as “a smart business model for antiques dealers” and “the destination for all things silver”.
“It also hosts a charming and informative blog written by John Culme, the noted silver specialist and author whose work includes the indispensable The Directory of Gold and Silversmiths, 1838-1914 (1987). Myfamilysilver.com is a welcome addition to the online world of antiques that makes this venerable material accessible to old and new collectors alike.” Read more here.
Scandal on Antiques Roadshow!
On January 21st, 2009 myfamilysilver wrote on the subject of Latest News.
If you live in the UK, did you catch the “Antiques Roadshow†on the BBC last weekend?
Among the usual family bric-a-brac and occasional gem, there was a rather intriguing antique silver tray bearing the maker’s mark of Paul Storr. As you already know but if you didn’t, Mr Storr was the mega-star maker of the late Georgian and Regency period. He was also the only English silversmith to rival Paul de Lamerie in the fame game.
The tray was engraved with a inscription explaining that it had been presented to a civic worthy in the market town of Hertford in December 1830. The tray was otherwise bog standard for this date i.e. it had a heavy cast border and feet with elaborate chased decoration. All, however, was not quite as it seemed.
As specialist Ian Pickford patiently and lucidly explained to the viewer, the hallmarks on the tray were in keeping with the inscription. They were struck in 1799/1800 at the height of the neo-classical period when it was quite impossible for such a highly elaborate tray to have been made. Still with me? This is exciting stuff!
So what had happened? Well, after gently pointing out that its obvious later alterations made the tray illegal (!) Ian suggested that an earlier Storr piece (possibly a salver or dish) had been cut up and used as the basis of the tray.
For me, this explanation begged a bigger question because Storr was still very much alive in 1830 and surely no other silversmith would perpetrate such an obvious fraud? I also think it is inconceivable, given the circumstances, that the good people of Hertford would have knowingly ripped off the recipient with a dodgy gift.
More likely I’m thinking is that they went to the best silversmith in London (i.e Mr Storr) to buy the flashiest piece they could. Unfortunately, their budget didn’t match their high ambition so maybe the renowned (but naughty) Paul Storr himself sold them this cut-price pup.
Scandal! Discuss! What do you think?
John Culme, who for many years has been connected with Sotheby's Silver Department, is author of several books and articles, including The Directory of Gold and Silversmiths, 1838-1914, published in 1987, and co-author with Nicholas Rayner of The Jewels of the Duchess of Windsor. He is also a Liveryman of the Goldsmiths' Company, London.
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