A FINE PAIR OF QUEEN ANNE SILVER TAZZE

MAKER'S MARK OF ISAAC LIGER, LONDON, 1704 AND 1705

Details

A FINE PAIR OF QUEEN ANNE SILVER TAZZE
Maker's Mark of Isaac Liger, London, 1704 and 1705
Each circular with a spirally gadrooned rim, the cast pedestal foot with a similar rim and compressed knop, the foot join with a cut-card calyx of stylized leaves, the field engraved with Royal arms and monogram AR, fully marked on reverses and with standard marks on feet; one salver with Liger's mark overstriking another
7 in (17.78 cm.) diameter; 28 oz. (872 gr.)
Liger, Isaac (2)

Provenance

John Smith, Speaker of the House of Commons, 1705
Thomas Assheton of Ashley, who married in 1724 John Smith's daughter Harriet, by descent to
Sir Michael Duff, Bt., Christie's, London, December 10, 1958, lot 116
Christie's, London, June 15, 1983, lot 230
S.J. Shrubsole

Literature

Michael Clayton, Christie's Pictorial History of English and American Silver, 1985, p. 126, no. 1

Lot Essay

The arms and monogram are those of Queen Anne. Their presence on these salvers is explained by the issue in 1705-6 of 4,000 ounces of "Indenture Plate" to John Smith, elected Speaker of the House of Commons on 24 October, 1705. He held the office until 1 November, 1708. The full inventory of the silver issued to Smith is contained in the Jewel Office Plate Book in the Public Record Office (LC947) and it is noted as discharged in the Lord Chamberlain's Daybook on 5 October, 1709. These salvers are described there as "one small pr. of sallvers wt. 28 ozs. 18 dwts. at 8s. per oz. [L] 12.05.07d."

Speaker Smith's silver descended to Smith's son-in-law Thomas Assheton of Ashley who had married his daughter Harriet in 1724. Thomas Assheton's son, also Thomas, assumed the additional name of Smith in 1774 at the death of his maternal uncle, William Smith, and the silver passed, along with the family's Welsh estates, to his grandson's widow who in 1858 left them to her husband's great nephew, George William Duff. Duff was great-uncle of Sir Michael Duff, Bt., who sold the silver at Christie's in 1958.

A dish from the same service by David Willaume was sold in these Rooms, April 16, 1985, lot 499.

**** "one small pr. of sallvers wt. 28 ozs. 18 dwts. at 8s. per oz. [L] 12.05.07d" (Jewel Office Plate Book L. C. 9. 47)