Lot Essay
This exotic urn was conceived as the centrepiece of an 'Egyptian' tea service in the French 'antique' manner promoted by the connoisseur Thomas Hope (d.1831) and adopted in 1802 by George, Prince of Wales, later King George IV, as the style for the 'Royal Grand Service'. Hope whjo had toured Egypt in 1797 adapted ideas from C. Percier and P. Fontaine's, Receuil de Decoration Interieures, 1801 and by Baron Dominique Vivant Denon's, Voyage dans la Basse et le Huste Egypte, London, 1802, which drew on information gathered by Napoleon's Art Commission in Egypt of 1798. These ideas were manifested in his spectacular apartment for his Egyptian 'curiosities' which he created in his Duchess Street mansion/museum, acquired in 1799
The chimney piece in the apartment, modelled on the Egypitian Apollo portico, displayed the sun-disc tablet that is featured on the stand. The urn, of 'Roman lamp' form, is supported by addorsed and monopodia chimerae, formed from the 'head abd claws' of protective monobreasted Egptian sphinx, recalling the celebrated Pompeian bronze tripod in Naples. Hope's version of the tripod featured, together with the Egyptian apartment in his Duchess Street guide, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807. His guide acknowledged a debt to Norden's, Travels in Egypt and Nubia, 1757; and the urn's husk festooned Apollo masks which are displayed against a papyruz-enriched coronna recal Norden's illustration of the Great Sphinx. The waterspout, which terminates in the head of Jubiter's attentive eagle recalls the handles of an Etruscan patterae in Hope's Guide and the flowered Grecian fretted ribbon, which binds the festive masks to the rim, and the rosettes and palmettes, which decorate the stand, feature in silver patterns in published in the Guide
This Egypitian urn would have been ordered from John Bridge of Messers. Rundell, Bridge and Rundell of Ludgate Hill, 'Goldsmiths and Jewellers to King George III and Queen Charlotte, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York.' It bears the maker's mark of Messers Digby Scott and Benjamin Smith of Rundell's manufactory in Lime Kiln Lane, Greenwich. At this period John Bridge was in charge of the company's artists ans was assisted by his nephew John Gawler Smith, whilr the sculptor William Theed (d.1817) was their cheif artist, and was assisted by the Paris trained artist Jead-Jacques Boileau, who had assisted the architect Henry Holland with the decoation of Carlton House for the Prince of Wales. Holland's collegue, the architect Charles Heathcote Tatham (d.1842), was the author of Etchings representing Fragments of Grecian and Roman Architectural Ornament, 1806 and a pattern book for silver in the 'antique' manner entitled Designs for Ornament Plate, 1806. His work and publications also contributed to the 'antique' character of this tea urn, but its inspiration is primaly due to Thomas Hope and the eclectic forms proposed by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, architect in 1761 of the Egyptian-style English coffee house in Rome and author of Diversi Manieri d'Adornare i Cammini, 1769.
The year in which this urn was commissioned the Prince of Wales appointed Walsh Porter (d.1840) as his architect for the new ap[artments being created by the architects James Wyatt and Thomas Hopper at Carlton House. At the same time Porter employed Hopper to create an Egyptian room at his celebrated cottage orneé in Fulham and in view of the lack of heraldic achievment engraved on the piece, he is a very likely patron for such an exotic piece of display plate worthy of the Prince's entertainment
The chimney piece in the apartment, modelled on the Egypitian Apollo portico, displayed the sun-disc tablet that is featured on the stand. The urn, of 'Roman lamp' form, is supported by addorsed and monopodia chimerae, formed from the 'head abd claws' of protective monobreasted Egptian sphinx, recalling the celebrated Pompeian bronze tripod in Naples. Hope's version of the tripod featured, together with the Egyptian apartment in his Duchess Street guide, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807. His guide acknowledged a debt to Norden's, Travels in Egypt and Nubia, 1757; and the urn's husk festooned Apollo masks which are displayed against a papyruz-enriched coronna recal Norden's illustration of the Great Sphinx. The waterspout, which terminates in the head of Jubiter's attentive eagle recalls the handles of an Etruscan patterae in Hope's Guide and the flowered Grecian fretted ribbon, which binds the festive masks to the rim, and the rosettes and palmettes, which decorate the stand, feature in silver patterns in published in the Guide
This Egypitian urn would have been ordered from John Bridge of Messers. Rundell, Bridge and Rundell of Ludgate Hill, 'Goldsmiths and Jewellers to King George III and Queen Charlotte, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York.' It bears the maker's mark of Messers Digby Scott and Benjamin Smith of Rundell's manufactory in Lime Kiln Lane, Greenwich. At this period John Bridge was in charge of the company's artists ans was assisted by his nephew John Gawler Smith, whilr the sculptor William Theed (d.1817) was their cheif artist, and was assisted by the Paris trained artist Jead-Jacques Boileau, who had assisted the architect Henry Holland with the decoation of Carlton House for the Prince of Wales. Holland's collegue, the architect Charles Heathcote Tatham (d.1842), was the author of Etchings representing Fragments of Grecian and Roman Architectural Ornament, 1806 and a pattern book for silver in the 'antique' manner entitled Designs for Ornament Plate, 1806. His work and publications also contributed to the 'antique' character of this tea urn, but its inspiration is primaly due to Thomas Hope and the eclectic forms proposed by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, architect in 1761 of the Egyptian-style English coffee house in Rome and author of Diversi Manieri d'Adornare i Cammini, 1769.
The year in which this urn was commissioned the Prince of Wales appointed Walsh Porter (d.1840) as his architect for the new ap[artments being created by the architects James Wyatt and Thomas Hopper at Carlton House. At the same time Porter employed Hopper to create an Egyptian room at his celebrated cottage orneé in Fulham and in view of the lack of heraldic achievment engraved on the piece, he is a very likely patron for such an exotic piece of display plate worthy of the Prince's entertainment