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Lot Essay
The Marine Tureens of Paul Storr and Robert Garrard
These magnificently sculptural tureens are masterpieces of the Rococo revival style. The marine theme, so evidently celebrated by the Devonshire tureens, was inspired by the renowned Royal Marine Service commissioned by Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707-1751) from the goldsmith Nicholas Sprimont between 1741 to 1744. The service, which remains in the Royal Collection, comprises a centerpiece, four sauceboats, and various shell form salt cellars. Its design was influenced by the work of the goldsmith to King Louis XV of France, Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier (1695-1750). Paul Storr will have been aware of the Royal Marine Service through his role at Rundell Bridge and Rundell, the Royal Goldsmiths, who produced marine salt cellars with shell bowls and merman supporters for the Prince Regent in 1810 to designs of Edward Hodges Baily.
The earliest mention of the exuberant marine inspired tureen form can be found in the ledgers of Robert Garrard, as recorded by J. R. Bliss in his catalogue of The Jerome and Rita Gans Collection, 1994, p. 206. An entry dated 12 June 1819, for an order commissioned by Robert Sherard, the 6th Earl of Harborough (1797-1859) included '2 finely chased terrines, stands, with marine figures supported by dolphins'. In the same year Storr severed his connection with Rundells, whose manufacturing silver department he had managed, in order to establish his own workshop.
In 1977 John Culme published his discovery that Robert Garrard had leased Paul Storr’s workshops some time before November 1822, (see J. Culme, Nineteenth Century Silver, p. 80). Such an arrangement established a close connection between the two businesses and this may have been why the tureens commissioned from Garrard in 1819 by Lord Harborough and later in 1824 by Fletcher Norton, 3rd Baron Grantley (1796-1878), recently sold from Hotel Lambert, Sotheby's Paris, 14 October 2022, lot 875, were identical to those produced by Storr in 1821 for the Duke of Devonshire, and later in 1822 for the Portuguese nobleman, Henrique Teixeira de Sampaio, (1774-1833), sold from the von Buhlow Collection, Sotheby’s, New York, 28-29 October, 1988, lot 218. A pair of tureens marked for Garrard, dating from 1827-1829, of the same design, were made for Edward Barneby (1802-1871) of Saltmarshe Castle, Hereforshire; now in the collection of the Virginia Museum (Bliss, op. cit., pp. 204-207, no. 70).
It would seem very probable that all were made in Storr's workshop with the Harborough, Grantley and Barneby commissions being retailed through Garrard. It is notable that the 6th Duke of Devonshire patronised both silversmiths and the Great Service he commissioned to adorn the dining room of Devonshire House on Piccadilly and later the Great Dining Room at Chatsworth came from both firms. His diaries record visits to both companies. Perhaps the grandest components of the service were the pair of ten light candelabra, which are applied with Cavendish stags and with Apollo figures stems. They are marked for Storr and dated for 1813. Later in 1819 he turned to Robert Garrard the younger for the magnificent set of ten ice pails with dolphin stems, spirally fluted bodies and shell and seaweed strewn rims. The candelabra and ice pails, and the tureens cited below, were illustrated in The Devonshire Inheritance, Five Centuries of Collecting at Chatsworth, Alexandria, 2003, nos. 189, 190 and 191. When the marine tureens offered here were added to the service in 1820 and 1821, they were accompanied by a pair of equally massive tureens, embellished with eagle handles and feet, also by Storr, which remain in the Devonshire collection.
The 6th Duke of Devonshire and the Great Dining Room at Chatsworth
William Spencer Cavendish (1790-1858), succeeded his father in 1811 at the young age of twenty-one. He was the youngest of his parents' three children. His inheritance allowed him to entertain lavishly, collect widely and embellish a number of the Cavendish houses, including Lismore Castle in Ireland, which he remodeled in the Gothic revival style and most notably the main family seat Chatsworth, to which he added the impressive Great North Wing to the designs of Jeffry Wyattville 1766-1840), later knighted for his work for the King at Windsor Castle. The North Wing allowed for the creation of the Great Dining Room, a sculpture gallery and ballroom, and below stairs a vast area of service rooms to enable entertaining on an almost regal scale. The Duke's magnificent commissions from Storr and Garrard were displayed in his Great Dining Room after its completion in 1832. As shown by the 1892 Devonshire House inventory the display plate travelled between Derbyshire and London for the London season.
These magnificently sculptural tureens are masterpieces of the Rococo revival style. The marine theme, so evidently celebrated by the Devonshire tureens, was inspired by the renowned Royal Marine Service commissioned by Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707-1751) from the goldsmith Nicholas Sprimont between 1741 to 1744. The service, which remains in the Royal Collection, comprises a centerpiece, four sauceboats, and various shell form salt cellars. Its design was influenced by the work of the goldsmith to King Louis XV of France, Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier (1695-1750). Paul Storr will have been aware of the Royal Marine Service through his role at Rundell Bridge and Rundell, the Royal Goldsmiths, who produced marine salt cellars with shell bowls and merman supporters for the Prince Regent in 1810 to designs of Edward Hodges Baily.
The earliest mention of the exuberant marine inspired tureen form can be found in the ledgers of Robert Garrard, as recorded by J. R. Bliss in his catalogue of The Jerome and Rita Gans Collection, 1994, p. 206. An entry dated 12 June 1819, for an order commissioned by Robert Sherard, the 6th Earl of Harborough (1797-1859) included '2 finely chased terrines, stands, with marine figures supported by dolphins'. In the same year Storr severed his connection with Rundells, whose manufacturing silver department he had managed, in order to establish his own workshop.
In 1977 John Culme published his discovery that Robert Garrard had leased Paul Storr’s workshops some time before November 1822, (see J. Culme, Nineteenth Century Silver, p. 80). Such an arrangement established a close connection between the two businesses and this may have been why the tureens commissioned from Garrard in 1819 by Lord Harborough and later in 1824 by Fletcher Norton, 3rd Baron Grantley (1796-1878), recently sold from Hotel Lambert, Sotheby's Paris, 14 October 2022, lot 875, were identical to those produced by Storr in 1821 for the Duke of Devonshire, and later in 1822 for the Portuguese nobleman, Henrique Teixeira de Sampaio, (1774-1833), sold from the von Buhlow Collection, Sotheby’s, New York, 28-29 October, 1988, lot 218. A pair of tureens marked for Garrard, dating from 1827-1829, of the same design, were made for Edward Barneby (1802-1871) of Saltmarshe Castle, Hereforshire; now in the collection of the Virginia Museum (Bliss, op. cit., pp. 204-207, no. 70).
It would seem very probable that all were made in Storr's workshop with the Harborough, Grantley and Barneby commissions being retailed through Garrard. It is notable that the 6th Duke of Devonshire patronised both silversmiths and the Great Service he commissioned to adorn the dining room of Devonshire House on Piccadilly and later the Great Dining Room at Chatsworth came from both firms. His diaries record visits to both companies. Perhaps the grandest components of the service were the pair of ten light candelabra, which are applied with Cavendish stags and with Apollo figures stems. They are marked for Storr and dated for 1813. Later in 1819 he turned to Robert Garrard the younger for the magnificent set of ten ice pails with dolphin stems, spirally fluted bodies and shell and seaweed strewn rims. The candelabra and ice pails, and the tureens cited below, were illustrated in The Devonshire Inheritance, Five Centuries of Collecting at Chatsworth, Alexandria, 2003, nos. 189, 190 and 191. When the marine tureens offered here were added to the service in 1820 and 1821, they were accompanied by a pair of equally massive tureens, embellished with eagle handles and feet, also by Storr, which remain in the Devonshire collection.
The 6th Duke of Devonshire and the Great Dining Room at Chatsworth
William Spencer Cavendish (1790-1858), succeeded his father in 1811 at the young age of twenty-one. He was the youngest of his parents' three children. His inheritance allowed him to entertain lavishly, collect widely and embellish a number of the Cavendish houses, including Lismore Castle in Ireland, which he remodeled in the Gothic revival style and most notably the main family seat Chatsworth, to which he added the impressive Great North Wing to the designs of Jeffry Wyattville 1766-1840), later knighted for his work for the King at Windsor Castle. The North Wing allowed for the creation of the Great Dining Room, a sculpture gallery and ballroom, and below stairs a vast area of service rooms to enable entertaining on an almost regal scale. The Duke's magnificent commissions from Storr and Garrard were displayed in his Great Dining Room after its completion in 1832. As shown by the 1892 Devonshire House inventory the display plate travelled between Derbyshire and London for the London season.