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Lot Essay
The 1851 Great Exhibition entry from Malta included a number related stone vases and ornaments produced by craftsmen such as J Soler and S. Testa. Amongst the examples illustrated in the accompanying catalogue is a stone vase by Testa decorated with a comparable rippled rim, bacchanalian female masks and fruiting swags (The Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, London, 1851, pp. 943-947).
The present vases were formerly displayed in the celebrated conservatory of Enville Hall, Staffordshire. The Hall is the ancestral home of the Earls of Stamford and Warrington. In the late 15th century a branch of the Grey family acquired through marriage the manor of Enville, and in 1530 Thomas Grey built a red brick U-shaped house on the site of a deer park. By the 18th century it was decided that Enville would serve as the family seat, at which time an extensive landscape garden was begun under the 4th Earl and completed in the 1770s under the 5th Earl. The 5th Earl additionally commissioned Sir William Chambers to draw up plans for a new Palladian mansion, but eventually a design by Thomas Hope in which the original Tudor house was encapsulated within a gothic castellated front was chosen. In 1854 a large conservatory punctuated by Gothic windows and Moorish domes was designed and built by Gray and Ormson of Chelsea to serve as the centrepiece of the gardens. Over 60 feet high and 150 feet in length, the conservatory was descried in a 1901 article by Country Life as ‘a fairy palace, a temple of wonder' (Country Life, 13 March 1901, pg. 336). The building was demolished in 1930 by demolition team stationed at Enville during World War II, who blew up the glasshouse during a practice exercise.
The present vases were formerly displayed in the celebrated conservatory of Enville Hall, Staffordshire. The Hall is the ancestral home of the Earls of Stamford and Warrington. In the late 15th century a branch of the Grey family acquired through marriage the manor of Enville, and in 1530 Thomas Grey built a red brick U-shaped house on the site of a deer park. By the 18th century it was decided that Enville would serve as the family seat, at which time an extensive landscape garden was begun under the 4th Earl and completed in the 1770s under the 5th Earl. The 5th Earl additionally commissioned Sir William Chambers to draw up plans for a new Palladian mansion, but eventually a design by Thomas Hope in which the original Tudor house was encapsulated within a gothic castellated front was chosen. In 1854 a large conservatory punctuated by Gothic windows and Moorish domes was designed and built by Gray and Ormson of Chelsea to serve as the centrepiece of the gardens. Over 60 feet high and 150 feet in length, the conservatory was descried in a 1901 article by Country Life as ‘a fairy palace, a temple of wonder' (Country Life, 13 March 1901, pg. 336). The building was demolished in 1930 by demolition team stationed at Enville during World War II, who blew up the glasshouse during a practice exercise.