MARK OF PAUL STORR, LONDON, 1813

Paul Storr produced a number of figural dessert stands similar to the present lot, with slight variations in design, which were often retailed by the Royal Goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge and Rundell. Rundell's album of designs, now preserved in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, includes a drawing of a centerpiece, attributed to Edward Hodges Baily (1788-1867) after a design by Thomas Stothard (1755-1834), featuring three bacchic nymphs supporting an openwork basket. It is very likely that both Stothard and Baily were drawing on the works of Percier and Fontaine found in their Recueil de décorations intérieures, published in 1801, and designs by Auguste Moreau and A.L.M. Cavelier created for Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot's 'Madame Mère' service, Paris, 1806.

An almost identical example with its original glass bowl of 1810 is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (acc. no. M.40 to B-1970). A further similar pair of silver-gilt dessert stands of 1810-11 formed part of the Duke of Wellington's Ambassadorial Service and remain at Apsley House (see N. M. Penzer, Paul Storr: The Last of the Goldsmiths, London, 1954 , pl. XXXIII, p. 144). Most recently a pair of gilt examples from William Lewis, 1st Baron Dinorben (1767-1852), of Kinmel Park, co. Denbigh, were sold from the Bayreuth Collection, Christie's, London, 7 July 2023, lot 33.