MARK OF PAUL DE LAMERIE, LONDON, 1737

Details

A GEORGE II SILVER COFFEE-POT
MARK OF PAUL DE LAMERIE, LONDON, 1737
Tapering cylindrical and on spreading foot, with rococo shell cast and chased spout, the hinged cover with baluster finial, chased with foliate scrolls and rocaille and engraved with a coat-of-arms, marked underneath and inside cover
9 in. (23 cm.) high
gross weight 29 oz. 10 dwt. (916 gr.)
The arms are those of Bigge impaling Dent with Hindmarsh in pretence, for Thomas Bigge (1683-1759), of Byker, co. Northumberland and his wife Elizabeth (1688-1758), daughter of Edward Hindmarsh, whom he married in 1706.

Provenance

Thomas Bigge (1683-1759), of Byker, co. Northumberland, bequeathed to his unmarried daughter in his will dated 1752,
Mary Bigge (1712-1791), bequeathed in a codicil to her will made on 1 August 1790 which left half her silver to her niece, the daughter of her sister Grace, Lady Carr and her husband Sir Robert Carr 1st Bt. (1707-1791),
Elizabeth Carr, Lady Glyn (d.1814), second wife of Sir Richard Glyn 1st Bt. of Ewell (1711-1773), presumably by descent to their third son,
Thomas Christopher Glyn (1789-1827), who married Grace Juliana (d.1872), daughter of Thomas Charles Bigge (1739-1794) and granddaughter of Thomas Bigge (1683-1759), (see above), then by descent to their son,
The Rev. Charles Robert Glyn, (1820-1882), rector of Wycliffe, co. York, and his wife Maria, daughter of Sir Theophilus St. George 3rd Bt., then by descent to the present owners.

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Lot Essay

Lamerie was often at his most inventive on small scale objects, especially coffee-pots. This example, with its unusual spout, is almost identical in form to a plain example, also dated 1737, illustrated and described in P. A. S. Phillips, Paul de Lamerie: Citizen and Goldsmith of London, London, 1935, p. 101, pl. CXVII, now in the Farrer Collection, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (WA1946.70). also dicussed and illustrated in T. Schroder, British and Continental Silver in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2009, pp. 752-753.. Lamerie produced short-spouted coffee-pots, used both for hot water and Turkish coffee, a viscous concoction of coffee and sugar syrup, which could clog the long spout of a more traditional coffee pot.

Thomas Bigge's choice of the leading goldsmith of the day may have been due to the family's London connections. The next generation saw the marriage of Thomas Bigge's eldest son, also Thomas (1766-1851), a London mercer, to Elizabeth Rundell, sister of the Royal Goldsmith, Philip Rundell (1746-1872). Thomas II later became a partner in the firm of Rundell, Bridge and Co.

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