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Lot Essay
These are the only pieces we own that were made by the great English silversmith Paul de Lamerie. They are the most unusual sauceboats I have ever seen, and we use them frequently. - David Rockefeller. (D. Fennimore et al., p. 399).
This undulating and abstracted shell form was likely derived from auricular designs published in the mid-17th century by Dutch silversmiths Adam van Vianen and his son Christian. The incorporation of these fleshy organic forms by leading London silversmiths such as Lamerie, and fellow Huguenot, David Willaume II, served as a stark contrast to the gravity and stoic symmetry of the baroque style of the previous decade. Nearly identical knuckled handles terminating in a grotesque dolphin heads can be found on three cream jugs attributed to Willaume, circa 1730, sold Christie’s, London, 22 May 1991, lots 90-92.
A set of our similar 1730-31 sauce boats by Lamerie in the collection of Paul and Elissa Cahn are illustrated in E. Alcorn, Beyond the Maker’s Mark Paul de Lamerie Silver in the Cahn Collection, Michigan, 2006. pp. 71-72. Another related pair, dated 1735-36, with larger more articulated dolphin handles are in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, a 2001 gift of Alan and Simone Hartman.
This undulating and abstracted shell form was likely derived from auricular designs published in the mid-17th century by Dutch silversmiths Adam van Vianen and his son Christian. The incorporation of these fleshy organic forms by leading London silversmiths such as Lamerie, and fellow Huguenot, David Willaume II, served as a stark contrast to the gravity and stoic symmetry of the baroque style of the previous decade. Nearly identical knuckled handles terminating in a grotesque dolphin heads can be found on three cream jugs attributed to Willaume, circa 1730, sold Christie’s, London, 22 May 1991, lots 90-92.
A set of our similar 1730-31 sauce boats by Lamerie in the collection of Paul and Elissa Cahn are illustrated in E. Alcorn, Beyond the Maker’s Mark Paul de Lamerie Silver in the Cahn Collection, Michigan, 2006. pp. 71-72. Another related pair, dated 1735-36, with larger more articulated dolphin handles are in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, a 2001 gift of Alan and Simone Hartman.