MARK OF PHILLIPS GARDEN, LONDON, 1754

PHILLIPS GARDEN AND THE SHELL BASKET
The shell shaped basket with dolphin feet was an enduring and popular form created by the leading London silversmiths of the mid 18th century. The earliest known example is by Paul de Lamerie, now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A later example by Lamerie of 1747 is in the Farrer Collection, The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. P. A. S. Phillips, in his catalogue of the collection says of this particular basket that '...nothing more successful as table ornaments ever emanated from the goldsmith's workshop.' It was exhibited in London at The Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition Rococo Art and Design in Hogarth's England, 1984, no. G21.

In her catalogue entry for the Farrer Lamerie basket Phillipa Glanville suggests that the silversmith may have been inspired by earlier Meissen porcelain examples, which were being imported into London in the 1730s. She cites a scallop-shaped dish by Heroldt of circa 1728 with a painted diaper border which bears resemblance to the piercing on the Lamerie baskets (see Pantheon, XV, 1935, p. 203). The shell like form may also have developed from shell-shaped sauceboats produced after a design, tentatively attributed to Pierre Germain, published in Eléments d'Orfèvrerie Divisés en deux Parties de Cinquante Feuilles Chacune Composés par Pierre Germain Marchand Orfèvre Joaillier A Paris, 1748, later re-issued by Diderot in Encyclopedie Planches, vol. 8, Orfèvres Grossier, Paris, 1771, pl. VI, fig. 5.

Christopher Hartop cites six baskets by Phillips Garden, similar to the present lot, in The Huguenot Legacy, 1996, pp. 234-35, no. 51. There is one of 1750 at the National Trust property, Polesden Lacey, Surrey, one of 1751 in the Royal Collection, London, a pair dating to 1754 in a European collection, the present basket of 1754, sold Christie's, London, 12 July 1995, lot 119, and one of 1755 in the Alan and Simone Hartman Collection, illustrated Hartop, op. cit., no. 51.

The marks of Henry Hayens and Phillips Garden, 'Goldsmith and Jeweller' of St. Paul's Churchyard, appear on many works similar to Lamerie's, and it has been suggested that they were buyers of Lamerie's 'patterns' sold in 1752 at Mr. Langford's auction following Lamerie’s death (Hartop, ibid., p. 52). In the words of Arthur Grimwade, Garden was 'an admirable exponent of the Rococo style' (A. G. Grimwade, London Goldsmiths, 1697-1837, Their Marks and Their Lives, London, 1982, p. 519). Indeed, Michael Snodin, op. cit., p. 120, doubts whether he could have produced such high quality objects as the pair of beer jugs of 1754, sold Sotheby's London, April 1969, lot 192 and illustrated in H. Muller, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, European Silver, London, 1986, no. 13, without the assistance of Lamerie's casts and tools.

A bill dated 4th January 1759 for the supply of an extensive dinner service by Phillips Garden to Sir Nathaniel Curzon for his neo-classical mansion, Kedleston Hall, further suggests that Phillips Garden was perhaps more a masterful retailer of pieces by the finest goldsmiths of the day, than an accomplished goldsmith himself. The magnificent Venus soup-tureens, one exhibited Christie's, London, Treasures of the North, 2000, no. 134, and the equally unusual flower-bordered dinner service, sold Christie's, London, 30 April 1996, lots 107-118, all appear on Garden's invoice but are in fact struck with the mark of William Cripps. The magnificent retail premises depicted on his trade card further support this theory, however the card itself proclaims ‘WORK perform’d in my own House’. Evidence that this may not have been entirely true is provided by almost identical baskets by William Cripps, such as one sold Christie’s, New York, 21 October 1993, lot 544.