A VICTORIAN PARCEL-GILT SILVER NOVELTY THREE-PIECE MONKEY CONDIMENT SET

This condiment set by Edward Charles Brown is the most lavish version he produced. The majority of examples that have appeared on the market in recent years lack the detailed parcel-gilding and the fitted case found on the present lot. A similar set was in the Colman Mustard Pot Collection, sold Christie's, South Kensington, 30 March 1993, lot 118. The popularity for novelty condiments in the 19th century is evident from the huge range of subjects and examples. They developed from such novelties as the monkey and barrel mustard pot exhibited by the French Empire silversmith Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot of Paris at the French National Exposition of 1819, which was later copied by King George IV's Royal Goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, illustrated in John Culme's Nineteenth Century Silver, London, 1977, p. 134.