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Howell & James supplies the Sultan of Turkey’s gold casket, 1867
On June 23rd, 2011 John Culme wrote on the subject of Blog with John Culme,Uncategorized.
The Sultan of Turkey’s gold casket, presented by
the Corporation of the City of London on 18 July 1867,
‘is a hexagon, supported at the sides by six
carved columns of Oriental character, surmounted
by one large and two small cupolas.
At the top of the central dome are the arms of the City,
enamelled in their proper colours,
with the winged dragon supporters on each side.
The panels are in pierced gold, relieved by a
ground of crimson velvet. The centre panels contain
the arms of the Sultan in green enamel and gold;
the sides, his Majesty’s toura,
or autograph signature, in carved gold.
The casket stands on a plinth of green velvet…’
(The Illustrated London News, London, Saturday, 27 July 1867, p. 102)
His Imperial Majesty Abd’ul Aziz I (1830-1876), was the first Sultan of Turkey to visit Europe. An admirer of Western culture and a reformer in his own country, his tour of 1867 included England, where Queen Victoria made him a Knight of the Garter. A highlight of the Sultan’s stay in London was his procession from Buckingham Palace to the City, when the route was decked with flags and lined throughout with enthusiastic sightseers.
At the Guildhall, where he arrived flanked by a detachment of Royal Horse Guards, Abd’ul Aziz was given a splendid welcome. The Recorder of the City read the address on behalf of the Lord Mayor and other dignitaries, a copy of which was then presented to the Sultan in an enamelled 18ct gold casket. The latter had been specially commissioned from the Lower Regent Street store of Howell & James, a rather surprising choice because most City presentation boxes and caskets were usually furnished by Garrard’s, Hunt & Roskell or J.W. Benson of Ludgate Hill.
Howell & James, established at the beginning of the 19th Century, has been described as a proto department store, in that it had several dedicated areas. By the 1860s it specialized in luxury goods in jewellery, ormolu, silver, cabinet work, fans, clocks and dressing cases.
The actual manufacturers of the Sultan’s crimson velvet-lined gold casket would probably have been a manufacturing jeweller/goldsmith based in the Clerkenwell or Soho areas of London, where the best work of this type was traditionally made.
His Imperial Majesty Abd’ul Aziz I (1830-1876),
Sultan of Turkey (1861-1876)
Take seven humming birds . . .
On August 27th, 2009 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
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.
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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