A PAIR OF VICTORIAN SILVER-GILT WINE COOLERS

MARK OF JEAN-VALENTIN MOREL, LONDON, 1851

Details

A PAIR OF VICTORIAN SILVER-GILT WINE COOLERS
MARK OF JEAN-VALENTIN MOREL, LONDON, 1851
Tapering cylindrical, each in the form of a wicker basket, the rims with hanging grape clusters, with grape vine handles, with removable liners and collars, the collars engraved with a crest and motto, each marked on base, liner and collar
8½ in. (21.6 cm.) high; 245 oz. (7635 gr.)
The crest and motto are those of Bolckow as borne by Henry William Ferdinand Bolckow who emigrated from Mecklenburg in 1827 and was naturalized by Act of Parliament. He founded the Cleveland iron trade and became the first M.P. from Middlesbrough. He died on June 18, 1878 and was succeeded by his nephew, Carl Ferdinand Henry Bolckow, of Marton Hall, Yorkshire. (2)

Provenance

Henry William Ferdinand Bolckow
Christie's London, June 4, 1969, lot 133 (incorrectly dated 1849)

Literature

J. Culme, Nineteenth-Century Silver, 1977, p. 156
M. Clayton, Christie's Pictorial History of English and American Silver, 1985, fig.1, p.156
A. Phillips and J. Sloane, Exhibition catalogue, Antiquity Revisited: English and French Silver-Gilt, London, 1997, p. 92, no. 24.

Exhibited

New York, Christie's, Antiquity Revisited: English and French Silver-Gilt from the Collection of Audrey Love, September 1997
San Marino, Huntington Art Gallery, November 1998 - January 1999

Lot Essay

Jean-Valentin Morel (1794-1860) trained with his father, a Parisian lapidary, and with Adrien Vachette, the noted gold box maker. He began his working career circa 1827 and later joined in partnership with Charles-Edmond Duponchel. Following the acrimonious dissolution of their partnership in 1848, Morel moved to London and set up a workshop. Despite success at the 1851 Great Exhibition, Morel's London venture was unprofitable and he returned to France in 1852. Upon his return to France, Morel participated to great acclaim at the 1855 Exhibition, yet died in financial straits in 1860. These wine coolers were produced during Morel's short tenure in England. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 55 no. 2, Fall 1997).

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