MARK OF DIGBY SCOTT AND BENJAMIN SMITH II, LONDON, 1805/1806

The crest and Viscount's coronet are those of Lowther, as borne by William, Viscount and Baron Lowther (1757-1844), created 2nd Earl of Lonsdale in 1807. In 1802 he had succeeded his cousin in the Viscountcy and Barony of Lowther. He married in 1781 Augusta, daughter of the 9th Earl of Westmorland. After 1802 until his death, he served as Lord Lieutenant of Cumberland and Westmorland. In 1808, his protegé Robert Smirkie wrote of him: "His Lordship rises at 7 o'clock in the winter and earlier in the Summer, and to bed between 11 and 12, and does a vast amount of business. His private amusement is hunting and he keeps about 50 hunters . . . He has very good spirits, and enjoys conversation &c., and tells pleasant stories Himself." (Complete Peerage) He was also known as a patron of the arts.

These coasters belong to a large group of silver-gilt by Digby Scott and Benjamin Smith commissioned by the Earl around the time of his rebuilding of Lowther Castle.

A pair of wine coasters made for the Earl's service of the same pattern and makers was sold in These Rooms on 21 April 1998, lot 187. A set of four coasters of the same pattern by the same makers engraved with the badge of the Duke of Sussex, 6th son of George III, is in the Al-Tajir Collection, illustrated in The Glory of the Goldsmith, Christie's, 1989, fig. 116, p. 154. Another pair of 1807 is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, illustrated in English and Other Silver: the Collection of Irwin Untermyer, 1969, fig. 191.