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Crichton Brothers, antique silver dealers; and a presentation cup
On August 19th, 2010 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
A presentation silver cup and cover, probably Thomas Heming, London, circa 1749,
in a photograph from one of the surviving early 20th Century cuttings books
of Crichton Brothers of London, dealers in antique silver.
The accompanying engraving of a cup is a detail
from one of Heming’s trade cards of about 1760.
Over the past 200 years the London antique silver trade has produced some interesting characters. Lionel Alfred Crichton (1866-1938) was one, who in the 1890s founded Crichton Brothers, known for its remarkable stock of the finest old silver. Within two months in the Spring of 1914, for instance, he paid then world record prices for single items of English silver: $22,500 for a James I silver-gilt cup;* and $26,800 for a Henry VIII standing salt of 1508 from Lord Ashburnham’s collection.**
Much English silver of the 18th Century also passed through Crichton’s hands. Auction records of the period repeatedly list Crichton as a buyer, but the firm was also very active in making acquisitions from private sources. Photographs of these objects were taken and some survive in two of the firm’s somewhat haphazardly kept cuttings books. The London-made cup and cover shown here (date and maker uncertain and present whereabouts unknown), is an example. While its inscription records it as the gift of the gentlemen (i.e. planters and merchants) of Port Royal, South Carolina, its design and workmanship suggest that it was probably originally supplied by the royal goldsmith, Thomas Heming. The silver scholar Hilary Young is the author of a fascinating article about a series of Heming cups and covers of this general form, with their distinctive figure handles.
One of L.A. Crichton’s sometime partners in Crichton Brothers was Philip A.S. Phillips (1867-1934), author of the pioneering biography, Paul de Lamerie, His Life and Work.
* – sold Christie’s, London, 4 February 1914, lot 61, £4,500
** – sold Christie’s, London, 24 March 1914, lot 51, £5,600
Detail of the inscription of the above cup:
‘The Gentlemen of Port Royal So. Carolina Present this Plate to
Captn. Harmar Comdr. Of his Majts. Ship Adventure in Grateful Acknowledgment
of his Services Done to this Port in ye Year 1748′
Among the ‘services’ rendered by Captain Joseph Hamar was to oversee
the construction of a careening wharf for the use of the Navy,
capable of receiving a ship of fifty guns.
(The Whitehall Evening Post, London, 26 August 1749)
(photos: courtesy of Sotheby’s Silver & Objects of Vertu Department, London)
Besides selling antique silver, Crichton’s was known for its fine quality reproduction silver, several examples of which are to be found here on myfamilysilver.com.
A shop in Oxford Street
On October 1st, 2009 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
a photograph from a rare 1870s trade card of ‘METCALFE, BINGLEY & CO., Brush & Comb Makers, Sponge Merchants, Perfumers, and Fancy Soap Manufacturers, Wholesale and Retail, By Special Appointment to H.R.H. The late Prince Consort, 130B & 131 OXFORD STREET, LONDON, W. 2nd and 3rd Doors West from Holles Street.’
Metcalfe, Bingley & Co, in London’s Oxford Street in the late 1870s, is not a business we usually associate with the sale of gold and silver. Established in the 1830s by Jacob Metcalfe (d. 1862), it specialized in brushes and combs, sponges, perfumes and fancy soaps, dressing cases and bags, photographic albums and other luxury goods. Typical of its rivals, however, the stock would have included many gold and silver mounted items, supplied by various specialist manufacturers, mostly in London and Birmingham.
These trade concerns, largely unknown to the general public, flourished during the Victorian and Edwardian periods: healthy home sales were easily outstripped by orders from abroad, particularly from the largely captive markets of the Empire. So it was that shops like Metcalfe, Bingley & Co might turn to Corke Brothers of Clerkenwell, silversmiths, gold and silver mounters, engravers and importers of fancy goods, who made heraldic devices, monograms, cyphers, &c, to enrich ivory, tortoiseshell or ebony brushes, combs and other dressing table paraphernalia. John Batson, originally a Soho cabinet maker, subsequently specialized in making silver-mounted tortoiseshell and ivory in a wide variety of forms, from inkstands and blotting pads to clocks. If mounted leather goods were required the retailer might have turned to Frederick Wich & Co whose wholesale warehouse was described in 1893 as ‘a paradise of leather [with] absolutely thousands of patterns of purses, letter cases, cigar and cigarette cases, with every description of mounts, from a plain silver border, up to elaborate fifteen and eighteen carat gold…’
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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