MAKER'S MARK OF GEORGE ANGELL, LONDON, 1862

The present pair of ornamental dishes is an almost exact replica of a Queen Anne silver basket made by George Lewis, London, 1700, now in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown (See Beth Carver Wees, English, Irish & Scottish Silver at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, New York, 1997, p. 179, no. 99). The rarity of this form in English silver and the highly modelled repouss work, very much in the Continental Baroque taste, suggest that the design for this piece was probably inspired from a German or French source. It is noteworthy that the Williamstown example bears the arms of the first Duke of Montagu, an ardent francophile and, at one time, ambassador to France under Charles II. It is therefore tempting to suggest that this basket may have been modelled on a French piece brought back to England by Montagu at the end of the seventeenth century.