A SET OF THREE GEORGE IV SILVER MEAT DISH COVERS

Details
A SET OF THREE GEORGE IV SILVER MEAT DISH COVERS
MAKER'S MARK OF PHILLIP RUNDELL, LONDON, 1820

Comprising: one large and a pair of smaller covers, each shaped oval with double molded rim and chased waterleaf border, the dome fluted with band of gadrooning, the detachable heraldic crest finial in the form of a Royal Duke's coronet and lion with label, each engraved with the Royal arms, marked under covers and on finials
the largest 21in. (53.3cm.) long
(383oz., 10522gr.) (3)
Provenance
The Valuable Collection of Old English and Foreign Silver & Silver-Gilt Plate of His Royal Highness, the Duke of Cambridge, K.G., K.T., K.P., etc., deceased, Christie's, London, June 6-7, 1904, lot 41. (three of six, /p65 16s 3d to Harman)
Sotheby's, New York, June 10-12, 1980, lot 460

Lot Essay

The arms are those of Adolphus Frederick, 1st Duke of Cambridge (1771-1850), seventh son of George III. From 1816-1837 he served as Viceroy of Hanover. In 1818 he married Augusta, daughter of the Landgrave Hesse Cassel, the unexpected death of Princess Charlotte having made it imperative that the Royal duke's should provide for the succession. The Royal Princes "displayed a dutiful diligence in dismissing their respective mistresses, as a preliminary to the holy estate of matrimony" [Sir Herbert Maxell]. He died in 1850 at the age of 77 and was suceeded by his son, George, who enjoyed an eventful career as an army officer, serving in the Crimean War.

The 2nd Duke was described as "a bluff, fresh, hale, country gentlemen, with something of the vigorous frankness of the English skipper and something, too, of the Prussian martinet; industrious, punctual, rising early, seeking rest late, fond of life and its pleasures, of good dinners, good cigars, pleasant women, of the opera, of the play" [Society in London, 1885, p. 19]. It has been said that his tenure of office as Commander in Chief of the Army for 39 years was noticeable to his steady opposition to every kind of Army reform [Complete Peerage]. He married, in a contravention of the Royal Marriage Act of 1772, in 1847, Sarah, daughter of Robert Fairbrother, a theatrical printer. She was a popular actress in burlesques and bore him three sons who adopted the surname FitzGeorge. The 2nd Duke died in 1904 when the dukedom became extinct. His silver was sold by Christie's later that year in what was to be the last in the series of great sales of silver belonging to the Royal dukes, which had started with James Christie the younger's sale of the Duke of York's collection in 1827.