A GEORGE III SILVER BOX

MAKER'S MARK OF HESTER BATEMAN, LONDON, 1783

Details
A GEORGE III SILVER BOX
Maker's mark of Hester Bateman, London, 1783
Oval, the sides bright-cut engraved with wrigglework and swags, the cover engraved with armorials enclosed in a bright-cut engraved medallion of foliage and paterae at intervals, marked inside base and cover
5in. (12.7cm.) long; 7oz. 10dwt. (234gr.)

Lot Essay

The arms are those of Curzon impaling Colyear, as borne by Nathaniel, 1st Baron Scarsdale (1726-1804), builder of Robert Adam's great neoclassical house, Kedleston, in Derbyshire. When Dr. Johnson visited Kedleston in 1777, Boswell observed "one should think that the proprietor of this must be happy," to which Johnson replied "Nay, Sir, all this excludes but one evil--poverty." (The Complete Peerage)

Lord Scarsdale married Caroline, daughter of Charles (Colyear), 2nd Earl of Portmore in 1750. Having succeeded to his father's baronetcy in 1758, he was created 1st Lord Scarsdale on April 9, 1761. He served as MP for Clitheroe and Derbyshire, and was one of the thirty-three peers who protested the repeal of the American Stamp Act in 1766.