MARK OF PAUL DE LAMERIE, LONDON, 1736

The arms are those of Maynard with a crescent for difference, for Grey, 5th Baron Maynard (1679-1745), who was one of Paul de Lamerie's most significant patrons. In 1736, the same year in which Lord Maynard ordered these four waiters, he also commissioned an extraordinary sideboard dish from Lamerie. Known to silver connoisseurs simply as the "Maynard Dish," this masterpiece of the English rococo (illustrated here) is now in the collection of Paul Cahn, St. Louis. The 1736 order also included two corresponding salvers, one of which is also in the Cahn collection. The engraving on the salvers, attributed by Timothy Schroder to the "Hasell Engraver," relates closely to the engraving on these waiters (see Timothy Schroder, "Evidence without documents: patterns of ornament in rococo and Régence silver," in Rococo Silver in England and Its Colonies, papers from a symposium at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 2004, London, 2006, pp. 59-71).

In addition to this group, Maynard ordered the following pieces from Lamerie: a cup of 1737, now in the collection of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers; a basket of 1743, sold by Christie's London, 2 December 1964, lot 11; and a set of candlesticks of 1744, now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The Maynard group is illustrated and discussed in Ellenor Alcorn, Beyond the Maker's Mark: Paul de Lamerie Silver in the Cahn Collection, 2006, pp. 84-90.

Maynard remains a somewhat enigmatic figure, despite his extravagant Lamerie patronage. He held positions at court as Yeoman of the Standing Wardrobe from 1710 and Yeoman of the Removing Wardrobe from 1728-1741. He died unmarried and the title passed to his younger brother, Charles, 6th Baron Maynard (1690-1775).

***CAPTIONS***
Grey, 5th Lord Maynard, Circle of Charles Jervas (d. 1739)
Christie's Images

The Maynard Dish, Paul de Lamerie, London, 1736
Christie's Images