Lot Essay
The Duke of York was the second son of King George III and brother of the Prince Regent, later King George IV. Having been educated at Kew Prince Frederick entered the army in 1780 as a colonel. He left England for Hanover the next year and on his travels around the courts of Europe he studied not only french and german, but also the military methods of the Austrian and Prussian armies. He was created Duke of York and Albany in 1784 and returned to England in 1787 when, in the following year he took his seat in the House of Lords, where his opposition of William Pitt's Regency Bill was seen as being the will of the Prince of Wales. He was a constant companion to his brother although this rarely interferred with his politics. He was seen as being a man of generous disposition and courtly manners, as illustrated by his refusal to return fire when challenged to a duel by Colonel Lennox, later Duke of Richmond, in 1789. The Duke received Lennox's fire and then calmly fired his shot in the air.
He married Princess Frederica, eldest daughter of H.M. King Friedrich II of Prussia in 1791 and it her arms which are engraved with the Duke's on the present lot. Sadly they soon seperated. The Duke's mistress Mary Anne Clarke was to be the cause of a scandal which almost brought his downfall. Throught her intimacy with the Duke, Commander-in-Chief of the army she was able to obtain promotions for young officers for which she took a fee. When this was brought to the attention of parliament in 1809 the Duke was shown to have been exceedingly careless with his associations with Miss Clarke, however, he was acquited of receiving money himself. Nevertheless he resigned from his post for a period of two years.
Following the example of his brother the Duke amassed a fabulous collection of silver which was both in the fashionable neo-classical style and also in the antiquarian taste. A great deal of the collection was supplied by Kensington Lewis a flamboyant retailer and the chief promoter of the more eclectic silver of the period.
On his death from dropsy in 1827 his affairs were a parlous state and his executors estimated his debt totalled between £200,000 and £500,000. As a result they took the unprecedented step of placing his collections up for public auction. This was entrusted to the young James Christie II who held sales which lasted from the 19th to 22nd March 1827. The present piece, lot 60 in the sale described as "A SUPURB OVAL SALVER, by Rundell and Bridge, came from the section entitled "SUPURB VESSELS FOR THE TABLE AND SIDEBOARD OF SILVER-GILT PLATE. The sale contained thousands of ounzes of silver and silver-gilt and realised £22,480, a fraction of the sum which the Duke had paid a few years before and indeed the Duke's supplier Lewis was able to buy back much of what he had sold for as little as half the original cost.
A number of similar trays are known, the design for which appeared early in the 19th century, all retailed by the Royal Goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge and Rundell. The first recorded example is that made in 1802, bearing the maker's mark of Digby Scott and Benjamin Smith, and engraved with the arms of the 2nd Baron Lowther (later Earl of Lonsdale), sold in these Rooms, 19 February 1947, lot 154.
He married Princess Frederica, eldest daughter of H.M. King Friedrich II of Prussia in 1791 and it her arms which are engraved with the Duke's on the present lot. Sadly they soon seperated. The Duke's mistress Mary Anne Clarke was to be the cause of a scandal which almost brought his downfall. Throught her intimacy with the Duke, Commander-in-Chief of the army she was able to obtain promotions for young officers for which she took a fee. When this was brought to the attention of parliament in 1809 the Duke was shown to have been exceedingly careless with his associations with Miss Clarke, however, he was acquited of receiving money himself. Nevertheless he resigned from his post for a period of two years.
Following the example of his brother the Duke amassed a fabulous collection of silver which was both in the fashionable neo-classical style and also in the antiquarian taste. A great deal of the collection was supplied by Kensington Lewis a flamboyant retailer and the chief promoter of the more eclectic silver of the period.
On his death from dropsy in 1827 his affairs were a parlous state and his executors estimated his debt totalled between £200,000 and £500,000. As a result they took the unprecedented step of placing his collections up for public auction. This was entrusted to the young James Christie II who held sales which lasted from the 19th to 22nd March 1827. The present piece, lot 60 in the sale described as "A SUPURB OVAL SALVER, by Rundell and Bridge, came from the section entitled "SUPURB VESSELS FOR THE TABLE AND SIDEBOARD OF SILVER-GILT PLATE. The sale contained thousands of ounzes of silver and silver-gilt and realised £22,480, a fraction of the sum which the Duke had paid a few years before and indeed the Duke's supplier Lewis was able to buy back much of what he had sold for as little as half the original cost.
A number of similar trays are known, the design for which appeared early in the 19th century, all retailed by the Royal Goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge and Rundell. The first recorded example is that made in 1802, bearing the maker's mark of Digby Scott and Benjamin Smith, and engraved with the arms of the 2nd Baron Lowther (later Earl of Lonsdale), sold in these Rooms, 19 February 1947, lot 154.