拍品专文
[photo caption:] Drawing for a candlestick, by James Wyatt, from his album of designs now in the collection of the Vicomte de Noailles, Paris. Courtesy the Board of Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum
[photo caption:] Boulton & Fothergill's Soho Manufactory, built by Samuel Wyatt, James Wyatt's brother, between 1759 and 1766. Engraving dated 1781.
These candlesticks are based on a design by architect James Wyatt (1746-1813), known for his work in the neoclassical and gothic revival styles. Wyatt attained recognition early in his career with the building of his Pantheon in Oxford Street, begun in 1769. He is perhaps most famous today as the architect of Fonthill Abbey, William Beckford's gothic house in Wiltshire, built from 1796 to 1812. The present candlesticks are typical of Wyatt's delicate, attenuated style, also seen in his interiors at Heveningham Hall, Suffolk, and in his Strawberry Room from Lee Priory, now installed at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Boulton engaged Wyatt and other architects to provide designs for silver objects made at the Soho Manufactory, which was developing a line of high quality wares to appeal to a more fashionable and refined clientele. With the production of such objects, Boulton & Fothergill sought to remove "the prejudice that Birmingham hath so justly established against itself" (Boulton & Fothergill, letter, 1768, as quoted in Frances Fergusson, "Wyatt Silver," Burlington Magazine, December 1974).
Boulton included an engraving of Wyatt's design for the present candlesticks in his Soho Pattern Books (v. I, f.43), where the design appears with a modified base matching those on the surviving examples in silver. These candlesticks include a pair from the same set as the present examples, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (illustrated in Robert Rowe, Adam Silver, 1965, fig. 50), and a pair of 1774 at the Birmingham Assay Office (illustrated in Rosemary Ransome-Wallis, Matthew Boulton and the Toymakers, 1982, p. 12). Boulton & Fothergill made another version in silver with a slightly different base molding, including a set of four of 1773 at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama, and a pair of the same year sold Sotheby's London, March 28, 1968, lot 155. A pair of silver-plated candlesticks identical to the present examples is in the collection of Colonial Williamsburg, illustrated and discussed in John D. Davis, English Silver at Williamsburg, 1976, no. 254, p. 226.
Matthew Boulton took John Fothergill into partnership in 1762, and their Soho Manufactory, a model of its kind, was housed in its new Palladian building by 1765. In the five years following, the capacity for producing larger silver wares and not merely toys (ie. buckles and buttons) increased, and from the late 1760s a handful of objects survive made by Boulton and Fothergill in their Birmingham factory but hallmarked at Chester, the nearest assay office. In August 1771, Boulton wrote to the Duke of Grafton to apologize for a cup that had been "delay'd and mark'd, which is a grievance that will prevent us (unless removed) from ever establishing an extensive Manufactory of Silverwares upon such a footing as will be most advantageous to this Kingdom." By incessant lobbying and by joining forces with the silversmiths of Sheffield, who were in a similar predicament, Boulton at last received Royal assent for a bill setting up assay offices in the two towns on May 28, 1773. It is said that as the lobbyists from the North had done so much of their negotiating at the Crown and anchor tavern in the Strand, it was there that they tossed a coin to decide what their town hallmarks should be; Sheffield won and got the crown, while Birmingham had to content itself with the anchor. The Birmingham assay office opened on August 31, 1773, with Boulton and Fothergill the first to enter their maker's marks. Silver struck with both marks is rare. (See Kenneth Crisp Jones, ed., The Silversmiths of Birmingham and their Marks, 1750-1980, 1981, pp.27-29.)
[photo caption:] Boulton & Fothergill's Soho Manufactory, built by Samuel Wyatt, James Wyatt's brother, between 1759 and 1766. Engraving dated 1781.
These candlesticks are based on a design by architect James Wyatt (1746-1813), known for his work in the neoclassical and gothic revival styles. Wyatt attained recognition early in his career with the building of his Pantheon in Oxford Street, begun in 1769. He is perhaps most famous today as the architect of Fonthill Abbey, William Beckford's gothic house in Wiltshire, built from 1796 to 1812. The present candlesticks are typical of Wyatt's delicate, attenuated style, also seen in his interiors at Heveningham Hall, Suffolk, and in his Strawberry Room from Lee Priory, now installed at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Boulton engaged Wyatt and other architects to provide designs for silver objects made at the Soho Manufactory, which was developing a line of high quality wares to appeal to a more fashionable and refined clientele. With the production of such objects, Boulton & Fothergill sought to remove "the prejudice that Birmingham hath so justly established against itself" (Boulton & Fothergill, letter, 1768, as quoted in Frances Fergusson, "Wyatt Silver," Burlington Magazine, December 1974).
Boulton included an engraving of Wyatt's design for the present candlesticks in his Soho Pattern Books (v. I, f.43), where the design appears with a modified base matching those on the surviving examples in silver. These candlesticks include a pair from the same set as the present examples, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (illustrated in Robert Rowe, Adam Silver, 1965, fig. 50), and a pair of 1774 at the Birmingham Assay Office (illustrated in Rosemary Ransome-Wallis, Matthew Boulton and the Toymakers, 1982, p. 12). Boulton & Fothergill made another version in silver with a slightly different base molding, including a set of four of 1773 at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama, and a pair of the same year sold Sotheby's London, March 28, 1968, lot 155. A pair of silver-plated candlesticks identical to the present examples is in the collection of Colonial Williamsburg, illustrated and discussed in John D. Davis, English Silver at Williamsburg, 1976, no. 254, p. 226.
Matthew Boulton took John Fothergill into partnership in 1762, and their Soho Manufactory, a model of its kind, was housed in its new Palladian building by 1765. In the five years following, the capacity for producing larger silver wares and not merely toys (ie. buckles and buttons) increased, and from the late 1760s a handful of objects survive made by Boulton and Fothergill in their Birmingham factory but hallmarked at Chester, the nearest assay office. In August 1771, Boulton wrote to the Duke of Grafton to apologize for a cup that had been "delay'd and mark'd, which is a grievance that will prevent us (unless removed) from ever establishing an extensive Manufactory of Silverwares upon such a footing as will be most advantageous to this Kingdom." By incessant lobbying and by joining forces with the silversmiths of Sheffield, who were in a similar predicament, Boulton at last received Royal assent for a bill setting up assay offices in the two towns on May 28, 1773. It is said that as the lobbyists from the North had done so much of their negotiating at the Crown and anchor tavern in the Strand, it was there that they tossed a coin to decide what their town hallmarks should be; Sheffield won and got the crown, while Birmingham had to content itself with the anchor. The Birmingham assay office opened on August 31, 1773, with Boulton and Fothergill the first to enter their maker's marks. Silver struck with both marks is rare. (See Kenneth Crisp Jones, ed., The Silversmiths of Birmingham and their Marks, 1750-1980, 1981, pp.27-29.)