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Lot Essay
The crest is that of Sutton for Sir Richard Sutton, 2nd Bt. (1799-1855).
Sir Richard Sutton was an influential patron of the Royal goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge and Rundell. He commissioned several important works in silver from them, much of which was offered in the sale of his collection at Christie's, London, March 31, 1976. Other items from the Sutton collection were offered at Christie's, London, May 11, 1994 and March 5, 1997. Most recently, a magnificent pair of silver-gilt candelabra, Philip Rundell, 1820 bearing the arms of Sir Richard Sutton sold at Christie's, London, July 5, 2000, lot 4.
John Flaxman, the famed neoclassical sculptor, engraver and designer for Wedgwood and Rundell's, executed the pen and ink drawing for the Theocritus Cup in 1811. Flaxman based the design on the description of a wooden cup by the Greek poet Theocritus (c. 308-240 B.C.) in his First Idyll: "And I will give thee a deep cup, washed over with sweet wax, two-handled, and newly fashioned, still fragrant from the knife. Along the lips above trails ivy, ivy dotted with its golden clusters, and along it winds the tendril glorying in its yellow fruit. And within is wrought a woman, such a thing as the gods might fashion, bedecked with cloak and circlet. And by her two men with long fair locks contend from either side in alternate speech. Yet these things touch not her heart, but now she looks on one and smiles, and now to the other she shifts her thought, while they, long hollow-eyed from love, labour to no purpose. By these is carved an old fisherman, and a rugged rock whereon the old man eagerly gathers up a great net for a cast as one that labours mightily...And a little way from the sea-worn old man there is a vineyard with a fair load of reddening clusters, guarded by a little boy who sits upon its dry-stone wall..." (as quoted in Penzer, Paul Storr, 1954, p. 158)
A Theocritus Cup of 1812, by Paul Storr for Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, was presented to King George IV from his wife Queen Charlotte and remains in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen, exhibited at The Queen's Gallery, London, Carlton House, the Past Glories of King George IV's Palace, 1991, cat. no. 86. A pair of Theocritus Cup wine coolers with plain foot-rims by Rundell, 1814 and 1820, sold at Christie's, Geneva, May 15, 1985, lot 73.
Sir Richard Sutton was an influential patron of the Royal goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge and Rundell. He commissioned several important works in silver from them, much of which was offered in the sale of his collection at Christie's, London, March 31, 1976. Other items from the Sutton collection were offered at Christie's, London, May 11, 1994 and March 5, 1997. Most recently, a magnificent pair of silver-gilt candelabra, Philip Rundell, 1820 bearing the arms of Sir Richard Sutton sold at Christie's, London, July 5, 2000, lot 4.
John Flaxman, the famed neoclassical sculptor, engraver and designer for Wedgwood and Rundell's, executed the pen and ink drawing for the Theocritus Cup in 1811. Flaxman based the design on the description of a wooden cup by the Greek poet Theocritus (c. 308-240 B.C.) in his First Idyll: "And I will give thee a deep cup, washed over with sweet wax, two-handled, and newly fashioned, still fragrant from the knife. Along the lips above trails ivy, ivy dotted with its golden clusters, and along it winds the tendril glorying in its yellow fruit. And within is wrought a woman, such a thing as the gods might fashion, bedecked with cloak and circlet. And by her two men with long fair locks contend from either side in alternate speech. Yet these things touch not her heart, but now she looks on one and smiles, and now to the other she shifts her thought, while they, long hollow-eyed from love, labour to no purpose. By these is carved an old fisherman, and a rugged rock whereon the old man eagerly gathers up a great net for a cast as one that labours mightily...And a little way from the sea-worn old man there is a vineyard with a fair load of reddening clusters, guarded by a little boy who sits upon its dry-stone wall..." (as quoted in Penzer, Paul Storr, 1954, p. 158)
A Theocritus Cup of 1812, by Paul Storr for Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, was presented to King George IV from his wife Queen Charlotte and remains in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen, exhibited at The Queen's Gallery, London, Carlton House, the Past Glories of King George IV's Palace, 1991, cat. no. 86. A pair of Theocritus Cup wine coolers with plain foot-rims by Rundell, 1814 and 1820, sold at Christie's, Geneva, May 15, 1985, lot 73.