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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)
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
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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