A PAIR OF GEORGE III SILVER SAUCEBOATS

These magnificent sauceboats epitomise the early 19th century Rococo revival, which saw the finest silversmiths of the period, including Paul Storr and William PItts, taking inspiration from the forms and ornament of the mid 18th century. The prototype for the present lot is likely to be the work of Frederick Kandler. Two pairs of related saucboats, also by Pitts, made in 1813 for the Earl Spencer, were in the Gilbert Collection, one pair sold Christie's London, 4 June 2013, lot 385. Timothy Schroder in The Gilbert Collection of Gold and Silver, Los Angeles, 1988, no. 105, p. 395 notes that the Pitts sauceboats are direct copies after a pair by Frederick Kandler, 1742, engraved with the arms of Lambourne, now in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Schroder, op. cit., p. 397 quotes Grimwade, London Goldsmiths, 1697-1837: Their Marks an Lives, London, 1990, p.229 who commented that the sauceboats were 'an interesting example of the return to taste, even if limited, of the rococo style during the Regency period'. As Schroder notes William Pitts favoured the rococo revival style and also produced many pieces in the historicist manner, including works based on the oeuvre of de Lamerie and other Huguenot silversmiths and those from the Continent. Examples include a George III silver-gilt sideboard dish chased by William Pitts, London, 1808, retailed by Rundell, Bridge and Rundell with the central scene of the Feast of the Gods taken from a 16th century bronze plaque by Guglielmo della Porta. (Christie's, New York, 19 May 2010, lot 145).