A PAIR OF GEORGE III SILVER-GILT VASES AND COVERS

MAKER'S MARK OF DIGBY SCOTT AND BENJAMIN SMITH, LONDON, 1805 AND 1806; DESIGN ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN FLAXMAN

Details

A PAIR OF GEORGE III SILVER-GILT VASES AND COVERS
Maker's mark of Digby Scott and Benjamin Smith, London, 1805 and 1806; design attributed to John Flaxman
Each vase-form on a circular base raised on four feet, the base cast with stiff leaves and bell-flowers at intervals with a guilloche band on rim, the lower body gadrooned, the shoulder with a band of scrolling foliage enclosing rosettes on a matted ground, the waist with inverted flower heads and acanthus leaves at intervals, the reeded side handles with snake-head joins, the cover with gadrooned rim, a band of trailing vine on matted ground below a band of rosettes, and surmounted by a pinecone finial, the wavy rim of both bodies engraved with a crest in two places, marked under bases, on cover of one, and on both finials, one cover also stamped RUNDELL BRIDGE ET RUNDELL AURIFICES REGIS ET PRINCIPIS WALLIAE LONDINI FECERUNT
7in. (19.5cm.) high; 60oz. 10dwt. (1896gr.) (2)

Lot Essay

The source for this design was a Roman marble urn in the celebrated antique sculpture collection of the 1st Marquess of Lansdowne, identified by David Udy in "Piranesi's Vasi, the English Silversmith and his Patrons," Burlington Magazine, December 1978, p. 837, figs. 55-57. Unlike the Warwick Vase, which had been popularised by Piranesi's engravings of the 18th century, the Lansdowne Urn was apparently reproduced directly in silver before it was eventually engraved by John Duit around 1813. The design in silver is attributed to sculptor John Flaxman, who used a variation of the urn in his tomb monument for Thomas Burrell in 1796 (Joseph R. Bliss, The Jerome and Rita Gans Collection of English Silver, n.d., p.134). Flaxman became Rundell's most important designer around the time the firm became Royal Goldsmiths in 1804. In this period, Scott and Smith ran Rundell's workshop, executing the designs and models supplied by the firm in silver and silver-gilt.

A set of eight vases of this design made for George IV as Prince of Wales in 1809 is in the Royal Collection, illustrated in E. Alfred Jones, The Gold and Silver of Windsor Castle, 1911, pl. LXXXIII. A set of four of 1805 from the collection of Earl Howe was sold at Christie's, London, July 1, 1953, lot 111. A set of four of 1816/1817 is in the Gans Collection at the Virginia Museum.

Another pair of vases of this design, by Benjamin Smith and dated 1812, sold at Christie's, Melbourne, July 22, 1997, lot 468.