Lot Essay
The arms on the liners are those of the original owner, Don Tomasso di Somma, Marchese di Circello, accolé with those of his wife, nee Ruffo of Calabria who was ancestor of the present Princess Paola of Belgium. Intriguingly, but perhaps not unsurprising given the fact that the tureens were engraved in Paris, the tinctures depicted are wrong. The arms are shown enclosed by the Order of St. Januarius, the premier order of the old Kingdom of Naples and subsequently of the Two Sicilies.
The Marchese di Circello served as Neopolitan Ambassador to the Court of Vienna in the 1780s before in 1787 being sent to represent the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies at the Court of Louis XVI, and it is tempting to suggest that these tureens may have been a gift to him from the French king. Di Circello's first-hand accounts of the events leading up to the storming of the Bastille in 1789 struck horror at Ferdinand IV's court at Naples, as the Neopolitan queen was Marie Antoinette's sister. In 1795 di Circello was sent to London to represent Ferdinand at the Court of St. James's and, on his recall in 1800, he consigned his silver for sale at auction. The present pair of tureens were purchased by Rundell and Bridge together with a matching pair of circular examples. They in turn sold one pair to George III, having gilded them and applied them with the Royal Arms, while the second pair, that offered for sale here, was sold to Lord Macdonald of Sleat and applied with the latter's arms. Interestingly, the engraved arms of the Marquese di Circello were left untouched on the liners of the tureens. The pair sold to George III remains in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle and is illustrated and discussed in E. Alfred Jones, The Gold and Silver of Windsor Castle, 1911, p. 94.
After his return to Naples, the Marquese di Circello served as Foreign Minister and was one of the chief advisors to Ferdinand IV. He died in 1826.
The applied arms on the sides are those of Macdonald of Slate, Isle of Skye, as borne by Alexander, 2nd Baron Macdonald of Slate, who was born in 1773, the son of Alexander, 1st Lord Macdonald and his wife Elizabeth Diana, daughter and eventual heiress to Godfrey Bosville. The 2nd Baron was, like his father, a soldier and served in the 10th Light Dragoons. In 1798, during the Napoleonic invasion scare, like many other landowners he raised a regiment, which was embodied June 4, 1799 at Inverness. It was ultimatewly disbanded at Fort George in 1802. Lord Macdonald was M.P. for Saltash 1796-1802. But it is perhaps as the builder of the family seat on the Isle of Skye, Armadale Castle, that he is best known. He died unmarried in 1824 and was succeeded by his brother Godfrey, the distinguished soldier who had served in the Peninsular campaign under Wellington. This Lord Macdonald had married in 1803 Louisa Maria la Coast or Laccoaste by whom he had had three children before marriage. Under Scots law, such children are legitimate and in 1910 a claim by a descendant of one of them, Alexander Wentworth Macdonald Bosville, was upheld and he succeeded to the title. Interestingly, the identity of this "Miss la Coast" has been much discussed; she is described in the birth register as "the daughter of Farley Edsir", who was steward to the Duke of Gloucester and tenant of a dairy farm near Hampton Court, but it is most likely that she was a natural daughter of the Duke, who was grandson of George II.
Henri Auguste, son of the distinguished goldsmith and "bronzier-ciseleur" Robert-Joseph Auguste, was born in 1759 and admitted a master on April 13, 1785, registering his mark the following week. He was "Orfèvre" to Louis XVI and in the late 1780s titled himself "Auguste Fils Orfèvre du Roi". He was one of the most successful silversmiths in the years just prior to the Revolution and appears to have enjoyed a brief period of renewed prosperity immediately following the establishment of the Empire. Auguste lightened the heavy, severely classical style of his father and successfully introduced lighter, more elegant forms. These tureens represent perhaps the most important examples of this little-studied style which enjoyed a brief vogue during the stormy years immediately following the fall of the Bastille and the Return from Varennes before the universal imposition of the more ponderous imperially-prescribed style known as Empire appeared. Auguste carried out commissions for the city of Paris including the Grand Vermeil, the famous service presented to the Emperor by the city, much of which is now at Malmaison. He was awarded a Gold Medal at the Industrial Exhibition in 1802 and made Napoleon's gold crown in 1804 in collaboration with the jeweler Aubert. Auguste was a restless researcher: in 1790 he sent a letter to the Journal de Paris announcing that he was searching for the best means to remove the tin found in copper bells. As a medallist, too, he was celebrated, perhaps his best medal being the one struck to commemorate Napoleon's victory at Marengo.
By 1806, however, Auguste's debts amounted to some 1,370,000 Francs, due, it has been suggested, to the early death of his wife, who had been his business manager. His creditors gave Auguste eight years to put his affairs in order but in 1809 he was caught at Dieppe trying to ship all his stock and valuables to England under an assumed name. His accomplice, a surgeon, one Charles Detz, was also caught. Auguste was declared fraudulently bankrupt and sentenced to six years in irons. He died in Port-au-Prince on September 4, 1816. His son, Jules-Robert, became well-known as a painter.
These dome-lidded tureens, which are of wine-krater vase form, have ribbon-fretted "Greek key" handles. Similar handles appear in the design for a tureen on stand of the same form, part of an album of drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, which have been traditionally ascribed to J.J. Boileau, a French artist working in London in the 1790s. From the designs in the album, it is clear that their author was associated with the workshop of Rundell and Bridge and it is possible that the di Circello tureens, in stock at Rundell's in 1801, provided the inspiration for Boileau's tureen. The paterae and frieze-like panels were combined with Egyptian motifs by Rundell's for a series of tureens on stands made in 1806/7 for the Duke of Cumberland (now in the Gilbert Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and for a set of four of 1803/5 in the Royal Collection. A virtually identical copy of the present tureens, however, bears the maker's mark of William Pitts and London hallmarks for 1801 and was evidently supplied by Rundell and Bridge to the Gordon family of Banff (sold Sotheby's, New York, April 20, 1983, lot 250). The same handles also appear on a set of four sauce tureens, part of the ambassadorial plate supplied to John Hookham Frere in 1803 and bearing the maker's mark of William Fountain, another outworker for Rundell's (sold Sotheby's, London, April 24, 1969, lot 239).
The krater form on stand applied with circular paterae was used by Henri's father, Robert-Joseph Auguste, for the pôts-à-oilles ordered by the Swedish Court in 1775 to celebrate Gustavus III's adoption of the 1772 Constitution (see Le Soleil et l'Etoile du Nord, ex. cat., Grand Palais, Paris, 1994, no. 464.
Caption:
Attributed of J.J. Boileau: Design for a tureen, pen ink and wash. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, reproduced courtesy of the Trustees
detail of the Marchese di Circello's arms on the liners
detail of stand
Franôis Garard, Henri Auguste and his family, oil on canvas, Chateau de Versailles, reproduced courtesy of Réunion des Musées Nationaux
The Marchese di Circello served as Neopolitan Ambassador to the Court of Vienna in the 1780s before in 1787 being sent to represent the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies at the Court of Louis XVI, and it is tempting to suggest that these tureens may have been a gift to him from the French king. Di Circello's first-hand accounts of the events leading up to the storming of the Bastille in 1789 struck horror at Ferdinand IV's court at Naples, as the Neopolitan queen was Marie Antoinette's sister. In 1795 di Circello was sent to London to represent Ferdinand at the Court of St. James's and, on his recall in 1800, he consigned his silver for sale at auction. The present pair of tureens were purchased by Rundell and Bridge together with a matching pair of circular examples. They in turn sold one pair to George III, having gilded them and applied them with the Royal Arms, while the second pair, that offered for sale here, was sold to Lord Macdonald of Sleat and applied with the latter's arms. Interestingly, the engraved arms of the Marquese di Circello were left untouched on the liners of the tureens. The pair sold to George III remains in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle and is illustrated and discussed in E. Alfred Jones, The Gold and Silver of Windsor Castle, 1911, p. 94.
After his return to Naples, the Marquese di Circello served as Foreign Minister and was one of the chief advisors to Ferdinand IV. He died in 1826.
The applied arms on the sides are those of Macdonald of Slate, Isle of Skye, as borne by Alexander, 2nd Baron Macdonald of Slate, who was born in 1773, the son of Alexander, 1st Lord Macdonald and his wife Elizabeth Diana, daughter and eventual heiress to Godfrey Bosville. The 2nd Baron was, like his father, a soldier and served in the 10th Light Dragoons. In 1798, during the Napoleonic invasion scare, like many other landowners he raised a regiment, which was embodied June 4, 1799 at Inverness. It was ultimatewly disbanded at Fort George in 1802. Lord Macdonald was M.P. for Saltash 1796-1802. But it is perhaps as the builder of the family seat on the Isle of Skye, Armadale Castle, that he is best known. He died unmarried in 1824 and was succeeded by his brother Godfrey, the distinguished soldier who had served in the Peninsular campaign under Wellington. This Lord Macdonald had married in 1803 Louisa Maria la Coast or Laccoaste by whom he had had three children before marriage. Under Scots law, such children are legitimate and in 1910 a claim by a descendant of one of them, Alexander Wentworth Macdonald Bosville, was upheld and he succeeded to the title. Interestingly, the identity of this "Miss la Coast" has been much discussed; she is described in the birth register as "the daughter of Farley Edsir", who was steward to the Duke of Gloucester and tenant of a dairy farm near Hampton Court, but it is most likely that she was a natural daughter of the Duke, who was grandson of George II.
Henri Auguste, son of the distinguished goldsmith and "bronzier-ciseleur" Robert-Joseph Auguste, was born in 1759 and admitted a master on April 13, 1785, registering his mark the following week. He was "Orfèvre" to Louis XVI and in the late 1780s titled himself "Auguste Fils Orfèvre du Roi". He was one of the most successful silversmiths in the years just prior to the Revolution and appears to have enjoyed a brief period of renewed prosperity immediately following the establishment of the Empire. Auguste lightened the heavy, severely classical style of his father and successfully introduced lighter, more elegant forms. These tureens represent perhaps the most important examples of this little-studied style which enjoyed a brief vogue during the stormy years immediately following the fall of the Bastille and the Return from Varennes before the universal imposition of the more ponderous imperially-prescribed style known as Empire appeared. Auguste carried out commissions for the city of Paris including the Grand Vermeil, the famous service presented to the Emperor by the city, much of which is now at Malmaison. He was awarded a Gold Medal at the Industrial Exhibition in 1802 and made Napoleon's gold crown in 1804 in collaboration with the jeweler Aubert. Auguste was a restless researcher: in 1790 he sent a letter to the Journal de Paris announcing that he was searching for the best means to remove the tin found in copper bells. As a medallist, too, he was celebrated, perhaps his best medal being the one struck to commemorate Napoleon's victory at Marengo.
By 1806, however, Auguste's debts amounted to some 1,370,000 Francs, due, it has been suggested, to the early death of his wife, who had been his business manager. His creditors gave Auguste eight years to put his affairs in order but in 1809 he was caught at Dieppe trying to ship all his stock and valuables to England under an assumed name. His accomplice, a surgeon, one Charles Detz, was also caught. Auguste was declared fraudulently bankrupt and sentenced to six years in irons. He died in Port-au-Prince on September 4, 1816. His son, Jules-Robert, became well-known as a painter.
These dome-lidded tureens, which are of wine-krater vase form, have ribbon-fretted "Greek key" handles. Similar handles appear in the design for a tureen on stand of the same form, part of an album of drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, which have been traditionally ascribed to J.J. Boileau, a French artist working in London in the 1790s. From the designs in the album, it is clear that their author was associated with the workshop of Rundell and Bridge and it is possible that the di Circello tureens, in stock at Rundell's in 1801, provided the inspiration for Boileau's tureen. The paterae and frieze-like panels were combined with Egyptian motifs by Rundell's for a series of tureens on stands made in 1806/7 for the Duke of Cumberland (now in the Gilbert Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and for a set of four of 1803/5 in the Royal Collection. A virtually identical copy of the present tureens, however, bears the maker's mark of William Pitts and London hallmarks for 1801 and was evidently supplied by Rundell and Bridge to the Gordon family of Banff (sold Sotheby's, New York, April 20, 1983, lot 250). The same handles also appear on a set of four sauce tureens, part of the ambassadorial plate supplied to John Hookham Frere in 1803 and bearing the maker's mark of William Fountain, another outworker for Rundell's (sold Sotheby's, London, April 24, 1969, lot 239).
The krater form on stand applied with circular paterae was used by Henri's father, Robert-Joseph Auguste, for the pôts-à-oilles ordered by the Swedish Court in 1775 to celebrate Gustavus III's adoption of the 1772 Constitution (see Le Soleil et l'Etoile du Nord, ex. cat., Grand Palais, Paris, 1994, no. 464.
Caption:
Attributed of J.J. Boileau: Design for a tureen, pen ink and wash. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, reproduced courtesy of the Trustees
detail of the Marchese di Circello's arms on the liners
detail of stand
Franôis Garard, Henri Auguste and his family, oil on canvas, Chateau de Versailles, reproduced courtesy of Réunion des Musées Nationaux