A pair of Regency gilt bronze wine coolers

Details
A pair of Regency gilt bronze wine coolers
attributed to Mathew Boulton,
on foliate and laurel wreath-decorated rising circular bases, the bodies cast, chased and applied with rising stiff foliage, vines and trellis-work and with satyrs' mask and foliate handles, each with a bead and egg-and-dart rim and detachable collar, the collars engraved with a coat of arms and a Baron's coronet above an engraved letter B -- 11in. (28cm.) (2)
Provenance
Almost certainly supplied to Nicholas Vansittart, created Baron Bexley, of Bexley Co. kent, 1 March 1823.

The Coronet is a Baron's coronet and the 'B' stands for Bexley. The arms on the left hand side of the shield are those of Nicholas Vansittart and those on the right are those of his wife and are those of Eden.

Lot Essay

These vine-wreathed and vase shaped ice-pails or wine-coolers, are embellished with roman-foliage, laurels and festive satyr-mask handles that are tied by a berried ribbon guilloche. Their Classical wine-krater form and ornament recall the celebrated vases of antiquity, such as the Borghese and Warwick vases, which Henry Moses illustrated in his, Collection of Antique Vases, 1814 (plates 37 and 450, and combined with the flower guilloche, after the French manner, they typify the 'Antique' style introduced during the Regency of King George IV. They were designed and executed by the Mathew Boulton plate company of Birmingham, and correspond to a silver version bearing the 1817 date-letter. (see Kenneth Crisp Jones, The Silversmiths of Birmingham, Fakenham, 1981, figure 28.

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