Lot Essay
The crest and coronet are those of the Earls of Scarbrough
Sauceboats of this form survive with the maker's marks of both Sprimont and Crespin, silversmiths whose work is closely related. Christopher Hartop has explored the business relationship between the two and has suggested that Sprimont was an occasional subcontractor to Crespin in this period (see The Huguenot Legacy: English Silver 1680-1760, 1996, pp. 216-219). Unmarked sauceboats of this form have traditionally been attributed to Sprimont because they are sometimes accompanied by fluted stands which were also made in porcelain at Sprimont's Chelsea factory. A pair of such sauceboats with stands marked by Sprimont in 1746 are in the Alan and Simone Hartman Collection (see Hartop, op. cit., fig. 45). The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has a set of four sauceboats and two stands from the same set. Another set of four sauceboats of the same form, however, are marked by Paul Crespin, with date letters for 1746 and 1752 (Christie's, London, March 26, 1975, lot 73). The present sauceboats differ from the above examples only in the handle design.
Sauceboats of this form survive with the maker's marks of both Sprimont and Crespin, silversmiths whose work is closely related. Christopher Hartop has explored the business relationship between the two and has suggested that Sprimont was an occasional subcontractor to Crespin in this period (see The Huguenot Legacy: English Silver 1680-1760, 1996, pp. 216-219). Unmarked sauceboats of this form have traditionally been attributed to Sprimont because they are sometimes accompanied by fluted stands which were also made in porcelain at Sprimont's Chelsea factory. A pair of such sauceboats with stands marked by Sprimont in 1746 are in the Alan and Simone Hartman Collection (see Hartop, op. cit., fig. 45). The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has a set of four sauceboats and two stands from the same set. Another set of four sauceboats of the same form, however, are marked by Paul Crespin, with date letters for 1746 and 1752 (Christie's, London, March 26, 1975, lot 73). The present sauceboats differ from the above examples only in the handle design.