A GEORGE III SILVER-GILT SIDEBOARD DISH

William Pitts made two sideboard dishes of this model for the Prince Regent, supplied by Rundell, Bridge and Rundell. Rundell's account of 1812 describes one of the dishes as "A Richly chased sideboard dish, to match His Royal Highnesses, and with devices of the Feast of the Gods, from a design of Michael Angelo, with chased mosaic border." (E. A. Jones, The Gold and Silver of Windsor Castle, 1911, p. 114)

The central relief is actually based on a bronze plaque attributed to Guglielmo della Porta (Anthony Radcliffe, Carlton House: The Past Glories of George IV's Palace, 1991, p. 119), which Rundell's designers would have seen as an engraving in the Benedictine classicist Bernard de Montfaucon's L'Antiquité expliquée, first published in 1719.
Another Pitts sideboard dish of this model, also 1809, sold from The C. Ruxton and Audrey B. Love Collection, 19 October 2004, lot 241.