拍品專文
The arms are those of Mildmay quartering Fitzwalter with Schomberg on an escutcheon of pretence, for Benjamin Mildmay, 19th Baron Fitzwalter (1672-1756), created Earl Fitzwalter in 1735. Mildmay's marriage at age 51 to Frederica, eldest daughter of Meinhardt, Duke of Schomberg, prompted Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to write to her sister that the bride-to-be was "sunk in all the Joys of happy Love notwithstanding she wants the use of her 2 hands by a Rheumatism, and he has an arm that he can't move. I wish I could send you the particulars of this Amour, which seems to me as curious as that between 2 oysters, and as well worth the serious Enquiry of the Naturalists" (B. Wees, English, Scottish & Irish Silver at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1997, p. 153.)
This plate is listed in the 1739 inventory of Lord Fitzwalter's plate, which survives and is illustrated in C. Hartop, Geometry and the Silversmith: The Domcha Collection, 2008, p. 87. For a list of auction appearances of other plates from this service, see B. Wees (op cit., p. 153).
This plate is listed in the 1739 inventory of Lord Fitzwalter's plate, which survives and is illustrated in C. Hartop, Geometry and the Silversmith: The Domcha Collection, 2008, p. 87. For a list of auction appearances of other plates from this service, see B. Wees (op cit., p. 153).