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拍品专文
These elegant cassolette-form vases with concealed candle sockets are conceived in the neoclassical taste, popularized by architect designers such as Robert Adam and James Wyatt. They take their form, with the reversable candle socket, from French-fashioned perfume-burners or cassolettes which were much in fashion in England in the latter part of the 18th century. A contemporary view is provided in a letter to the Birmingham silversmith and entrepreneur Matthew Boulton (1728-1809), from Mrs. Montagu (d.1800), following the architect and designer James 'Athenian' Stuart's decoration of her London house in Hill Street,
"...my friends reproach me that I do not regale their noses with fine odours... The cassolettes used to make their entry with desert." (N. Goodison, Ormolu: the work of Matthew Boulton, London, 1974, p. 25).
It would appear that Mrs. Montagu had lent Boulton her Parisian cassolettes, as mentioned in a letter of January 1772: "I hope you will not imagine I pretend to give Mr. Boulton a pattern, an Athenian in the best age of the arts could only be worthy to furnish him with a model, but there is a prettiness of fancy in the cassolettes which improved into grace and good taste w'd render the sort of thing a beautiful addition to a table".
It was perhaps a pair of such cassolettes which inspired the design of the present cassolette candlesticks by Makepeace and Carter, leading London silversmiths who created works in the style of both Robert Adam and James Wyatt. There is resemblance between these candlesticks and a tripod-form silver cassolette, or perfume burner, manufactured in 1779 by Matthew Boulton and John Fothergill now in the Temple Newsam Collection. It has been shown that this cassolette relates, albeit with numerous alterations, to a James Wyatt design for a jug and stand, which was copied into the Matthew Boulton pattern book (see James Lomax, British Silver at Temple Newsam and Lotherton Hall, 1992, p.101-4 and Frances Fergusson "Wyatt Silver", The Burlington Magazine, December 1974, pp. 751-55).
The present lot also share characteristics with the candelabra designed in 1773 by Robert Adam for Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn. John Carter executed the Adam design in silver in 1774 and both the candelabra and Adam's drawing are illustrated in Robert Rowe, Adam Silver, 1953, figs. 12 and 13. While considerably simplified in design, they share with the present lot a similar vase-form bowl, ram's heads and bellflower swags. It is interesting to note that the present lot was manufactured by John Carter's younger brother or cousin, Richard Carter in partnership with Robert Makepeace, and that their partnership was recorded the same day in which John Carter was noted as leaving the trade.
Further parallels can be drawn between the pale blue and white painted carved wood candlestands designed for Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn by Robert Adam, which are now in the collection of the Victorian and Albert Museum, London (obj. no. W.36A-1946). Created to adorn the dining room of his London house in St. James's Square, they share the same concave triangular base inspired by Roman three sided sacrificial altars.
"...my friends reproach me that I do not regale their noses with fine odours... The cassolettes used to make their entry with desert." (N. Goodison, Ormolu: the work of Matthew Boulton, London, 1974, p. 25).
It would appear that Mrs. Montagu had lent Boulton her Parisian cassolettes, as mentioned in a letter of January 1772: "I hope you will not imagine I pretend to give Mr. Boulton a pattern, an Athenian in the best age of the arts could only be worthy to furnish him with a model, but there is a prettiness of fancy in the cassolettes which improved into grace and good taste w'd render the sort of thing a beautiful addition to a table".
It was perhaps a pair of such cassolettes which inspired the design of the present cassolette candlesticks by Makepeace and Carter, leading London silversmiths who created works in the style of both Robert Adam and James Wyatt. There is resemblance between these candlesticks and a tripod-form silver cassolette, or perfume burner, manufactured in 1779 by Matthew Boulton and John Fothergill now in the Temple Newsam Collection. It has been shown that this cassolette relates, albeit with numerous alterations, to a James Wyatt design for a jug and stand, which was copied into the Matthew Boulton pattern book (see James Lomax, British Silver at Temple Newsam and Lotherton Hall, 1992, p.101-4 and Frances Fergusson "Wyatt Silver", The Burlington Magazine, December 1974, pp. 751-55).
The present lot also share characteristics with the candelabra designed in 1773 by Robert Adam for Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn. John Carter executed the Adam design in silver in 1774 and both the candelabra and Adam's drawing are illustrated in Robert Rowe, Adam Silver, 1953, figs. 12 and 13. While considerably simplified in design, they share with the present lot a similar vase-form bowl, ram's heads and bellflower swags. It is interesting to note that the present lot was manufactured by John Carter's younger brother or cousin, Richard Carter in partnership with Robert Makepeace, and that their partnership was recorded the same day in which John Carter was noted as leaving the trade.
Further parallels can be drawn between the pale blue and white painted carved wood candlestands designed for Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn by Robert Adam, which are now in the collection of the Victorian and Albert Museum, London (obj. no. W.36A-1946). Created to adorn the dining room of his London house in St. James's Square, they share the same concave triangular base inspired by Roman three sided sacrificial altars.