MARK OF WILLIAM LUKIN, LONDON, CIRCA 1720, AND WITH EARLIER TRANSPOSED LONDON BRITANNIA STANDARD MARKS

Details

AN IMPORTANT GEORGE I SILVER-GILT FOUNTAIN FROM THE ROYAL COLLECTION
Mark of William Lukin, London, circa 1720, and with earlier transposed London Britannia standard marks
An urn-shaped and two-handled fountain, applied with strapwork on matted ground and with medallions showing profiles, chased with female masks, shells and vases of flowers, with faceted spout issuing from a lion's mask, with domed cover and bud finial mounted inside with a Queen Anne medallion and later applied with a Royal Duke's armorials, marked under base
24½in. (62.2cm.) high; 262oz. (8,149gr.)

Provenance

George, Prince of Wales, later George IV
The Dick Family Collection, sold Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, December 16, 1976, lot 61

Literature

J.B. Hawkins, The Al Tajir Collection of Silver and Gold, London, 1983, vol.I, pp. 29-31
M. Clayton, The Collector's Dictionary of the Silver and Gold of Great Britain and North America, Woodbridge, second edition, 1985, p. 464, pl. 77
Vanessa Brett, The Sotheby's Dictionary of Silver, London, 1986, no. 664
The Glory of the Goldsmith: Magnificent Gold and Silver from the Al-Tajir Collection, 1989, no.61, p.88-89

Exhibited

Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, "The Canadian Taste in English Silver", 1958
Sydney Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1980, no.4
"The Glory of the Goldsmith: Magnificent Gold and Silver from the Al-Tajir Collection," Christie's, London, 1989, no.61

Lot Essay

The applied Royal armorials are those of George, Prince of Wales, later George IV.

Fountains, because of their impressive scale, frequently formed the centerpiece to an entire buffet of plate, and were positioned over a cistern. Although sometimes they are referred to as wine fountains, their true function was to hold water for rinsing and chilling glasses at the sideboard.

George IV held a number of elaborate banquets with vast displays of gilt sideboard plate, and this fountain would have been flanked by other earlier pieces from the Royal Collection, as well as the Prince Regent's new commissions from Rundell's.

The practice of inserting earlier hallmarks in a new piece allowed the silversmith to avoid taking the object to Goldsmiths' Hall, where a duty based on the total silver weight would have to be paid before the hallmarks could be struck. After 1720, when this new tax was imposed, it is not uncommon to find earlier hallmarks, presumably taken from a small piece of silver, reused on a much larger and heavier vessel. In the case of this massive fountain, William Lukin must have avoided paying a good amount of tax by his cleverly disguised "duty dodging."

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