Koller, 17 September 2007, lot 1727

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Koller, 17 septembre 2007, lot 1727

It is clear that by the first years of the 19th century, the London trade in old silver was in a very flourishing condition, when Garrard's (commercially descended from George Wickes) and Rundell, Bridge & Rundell were among the leading dealers. It was at this moment, however, that demand began to outstrip supply; to judge from surviving pieces it was between 1806 and 1808 that newly made silver in retrospective styles began to appear for the first time, not as some special order anomaly but as various goldsmiths' deliberate policy. Besides the present wine coolers of 1808, early examples include a number of quilt and shell pattern candlesticks, John Mewburn, London, 1806, based on originals bearing the marks of William Solomon, London, 1752 (Sotheby's, Luton Hoo, 20 May 1995, lots 78 and 79), similar to the present examples; a soup tureen and cover, Paul Storr, London, 1807, probably retailed by Rundell's, similar to a pair of William Cripps examples of 1756 (Christie's, London, 2 March 1994, lot 70; Sotheby's, London, 20 February 1964, lot 95); a pair of leaf-shaped dishes, Robert Garrard, London, 1807, almost identical to a set of four, Edward Wakelin, London, 1758 and circa (Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, 14/16 September 1972, lot 450; Sotheby's, London, 11 November 1993, lot 452); and a set of four candlesticks, Paul Storr, London, 1808, probably retailed by Rundell's, copies of originals in gilt bronze designed by Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier, 1729 (Morrie A. Moss, The Lillian and Morrie Moss Collection of Paul Storr Silver, Miani, 1972, pp. 112-113, pl. 52; Peter Fuhring, Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier, Un génie du rococo 1695-1750, Umberton Allemandi & C., Turin and London, 1999, vol. II, pp. 193-196, nos. 29 and 29a). By 1809 the manufacture in London of high quality reproduction silver, or pieces that were inspired by old silver and silver-gilt plate, was in full swing. The most extreme examples in this taste were made for the retail goldsmith Kensington Lewis by Edward Farrell's workshop during the next decade or so, when Lewis's chief customer, the Duke of York ordered thousands of ounces of silver and silver-gilt in archaic styles. Indeed, it was from this period that interest in old silver began its relentless hold on English collectors and the silver trade as a whole, stimulating academi🦩c research (by Octavius Morgan, William Chaffers and others); promoting the manufacture of reproductions for a mass market, particularly from the 1880s; and encouraging the rise of a new class of retailer: the dealer in antique silver, among whom during the first half of the 20th Century Crichton Brothers were probably the most celebrated.