A PAIR OF REGENCY SILVER WINE COOLERS

Details
A PAIR OF REGENCY SILVER WINE COOLERS
MAKER'S MARK OF PAUL STORR, LONDON, 1811

Each on four massive acanthus scroll feet and octagonal pads, the fluted bodies with gadrooned and anthemion rims and lion's-mask acanthus fluted handles, with removable everted collars, the gadrooned rims with acanthus shells and anthemion at intervals, and plain cylindrical liners, engraved front and back with an Earl's armorials, the collars with a crest and Earl's coronet, fully marked, also struck with later French control marks--9½in.(24.2cm.) high
(250oz., 7780gr.) (2)
Provenance
Florence J. Gould, Sotheby's, Monte Carlo, June 26, 1984, lot 1209

Lot Essay

The arms are those of Toler with those of Graham on an escutcheon of pretence, as borne by John, 1st Earl of Norbury, born in 1745. A distinguished lawyer, he served as Solicitor-General for Ireland 1789-1798 and Attorney-General from 1798 until 1800, when he was appointed Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. He married in 1778 Grace, daughter of Hector Graham, and died, aged 85, in 1831. "His favorite boast was that he began the world with 50 and a pair of hair-triggered pistols. The following account of him is in A Review of the Irish House of Commons for 1798, by the Rev. John Scott, a Whig writer, "His voice is very good, very strong, distinct, manly and well-toned ... his manner is bold and intrepid ... the matter of his speeches though sometimes flimsy and sometimes wire-drawn has frequently much merit, for Mr. Toler is a scholar ... as a placeman and a lawyer seeking to be a judge, his political conduct is readily known; it is invariably guided by the Pole Star of the Castle." The Sunday Times of August 14, 1825 is very frank in its opinion of him: "At the advanced age of 86 [sic] this old man still clings to the judgement seat in Ireland and turns the courts where he presides into a scene of buffoonery. His appearance is that of a well-worn horse-jockey, and his language the counterpart of a merry-andrew at a village fair" (Complete Peerage).