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‘Sir Roger de Coverley and the Gipsies’
On January 21st, 2010 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
‘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
Fit for a gentleman’s desk
On October 8th, 2009 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
an unidentified gentleman with a silver ‘Grecian’ pattern inkstand, manufactured in three sizes (11, 13 and 16 inches wide) by Edward Barnard & Sons of London (photo: Robert Cade, Ipswich, late 1860s)
Silver inkstands, at least in Britain, were considered fitting gifts for men in all stations from the late 17th Century for nearly 300 years. But surely few recipients of such useful, decorative and expensive objects could have been as graceless as John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) when in 1858 he heard that colleagues in the East India Company were about to present him with one after 35 years’ service. They had commissioned the architect Matthew Digby Wyatt for a special design and the scheme was near to completion by Elkington’s the silversmiths when Mill declared that ‘he hated all such demonstrations [because] they were never altogether genuine or spontaneous.’ This outburst shamed the committee into delivering the inkstand to the great man’s house in secret!
No such ill-mannered sentiments marred the presentation of an inkstand to the eminent architect J.B. Papworth (1775-1847), when in 1847 a group of his professional friends and pupils gathered to express their respect and esteem. They recalled not only his services to architecture but also his influence on the applied arts (he furnished patterns for, among others, the royal goldsmiths, Rundell, Bridge & Rundell) and as the first director of the Government Schools of Design.
Many lesser dignitaries, like the unknown gentleman in our photograph, received gifts of inscribed inkstands. In fact, in Victorian times the big manufacturing silversmiths produced special models appropriate to various professions, such as Elkington’s for churchmen and philanthropists where the ink pots flanked a figure of a shivering beggar.
an engraving of the inscribed silver inkstand, manufacturer unknown, presented to the architect John Buonarotti Papworth on Monday, 25 January 1847, at the house in Bolton Gardens, Russell Square, London, of Thomas Leverton Donaldson (1795-1885), a co-founder of the Royal Institute of British Architects (The Illustrated London News, London, 30 January 1847, pp. 75-6)
- Various inkstands are currently listed on myfamilysilver.com, as well as other interesting items from Edward Barnard & Sons, Elkington & Co and Rundell, Bridge & Rundell
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
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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