The Gorges Cups & Covers. An important pair of early Queen Anne Britannia

Each cup is of bell-shaped form standing on a spreading gadrooned foot, the lower body applied with egg-and-dart and husk strapwork, including stylised wheatears and entwined bands. The harp-shaped handles with lambrequin terminals, unusually displaying shells and tassels. The front of each main body engraved with a coat-of-arms within a baroque cartouche, displaying architectural scrolls, strapwork and harebells. The domed cover with gadrooned rim and applied with palm leaves and terminating with bud finial, marked under each base and cover, engraved with scratch weights on bases 35=10 and 33=19, on covers 11=3 and 10=19 Height: 8 3/4 in, 22 cm. Length, handle to handle: 9.5 inches, 23.75 cm. Diameter of the bowl: 5.75 inches, 14.38 cm. Weight: 91 oz. 10 dwt. (2,850 gr.) THE GORGES PLATE These Cups and Covers form part of an order of gilt plate which epitomises the superb quality of the best English silver made during the reign of Queen Anne and George I. The order was fulfilled by a number of Huguenot goldsmiths in collaboration with Platel, including David Willaume I and Nicolaus Clausen, for a member of the Gorges family whose arms are engraved on each piece. The plate was acquired by Garrard & Co who sold it on Christmas Eve 1878 to the future Prime minister Lord Rosebery, who had married Hannah Rothschild in the same year. It was then sold at Sotheby’s on 11 February 1999, Magnificent silver-gilt Objects of Vertu and Miniatures From the Rothschild and Rosebery Collection, Mentmore , lots 22-26, and also included four footed circular salvers, four hexagonal salvers, a set of three casters, a Ewer and this pair of two-handled cups and covers as well. A silver-gilt coffee pot with the same armorials, by Nicolaus Clausen, was offered Christies, London, 12 June 2007, lot 95. ARMORIAL RESEARCH HENRY GORGES ( 1665-1718 ) OF EYE & THE MYNDE The Armorial appears to be those of Henry Gorges of Eye Manor and The Mynde, Herefordshire (c. 1665–1718). His father Ferdinando Gorges, whom he succeeded in 1701, had made a fortune in the West Indies and spectacularly enriched Eye Manor with baroque plasterwork in the height of Dutch fashion. These ceilings at Eye can be compared with the work of George Dunsterfield and John Halbert, `English plasterers' who between 1674 and 1679 furnished similar elaborate ceilings for Hollyrood Palace in Edinburgh. Henry Gorges was M.P. for Herefordshire in 1698 and later for Weobley and Leominster. He married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Robert Pye of The Mynde, who died in 1710. In Gorges's will dated March 12, 1717 (and proved on December 1, 1719) he leaves to his second wife Dorothy " all my plate linen household goods furniture and utensils ... in my house in Devonshire Street, St Andrewes Holborne And also such pieces of plate att my house att Eye ... as she shall choose not exceeding £100. To my daughter Meliora £4000 and £80 a year ... my pearl necklace and one of my best silver cupps and covers with such salver as she shall choose for it to stand on ... To my youngest daughter Mary £3000 and £60 a year and my diamond ring with her mother's hair and a silver cup and cover the fellow to that herein before given to her sister Meliora with such salver to sett the same on as after her sisters choices as aforesaid she shall choose ... the remaining plate to my eldest son Robert barring the large tankard to my executor for his trouble" 1 . Meliora, who died unmarried aged 43 left her cup, cover and salver to her sister's daughter. Robert Gorges was sixteen at the time of his father's death and died, unmarried, in 1727 when he was succeeded by his brother Richard who died in 1749. Richard's monument in Eye Church is carved with the Gorges arms with the same quarterings as on the Gorges plate. PIERRE PLATEL The Goldsmith Pierre Platel, a resident of Lille, to whom Paul de Lamerie was apprenticed in 1703, came to England in 1688 'in the train of William III', a connection maintained through the patronage of figures close to the king such Hans William Bentinck and William Cavendish (Earl and Duke of Portland and Devonshire). His place of work was 'over against the Duke of Schomberg's', a title born by two senior courtiers Friedrich Schomberg and his son Meinhardt. The former, leader of the Huguenot community in Berlin, died in King William's service at the Battle of the Boyne and Meinhardt, also fought in Ireland and was created first Duke of Leinster in 1691. The Gorges plate is characterized by the extremely high quality of the engraving. The use of berried foliage, fishscale and husks is typical of the work of Blaise Gentot, a French immigrant engraver who worked in London for a time, but the distinctive circular composition of the armorials on this ewer and the other Gorges pieces is perhaps closest to armorial engraving done for the Jewel House by John Rollos, one of the Huguenot family of goldsmiths, die cutters and engravers. PROVENANCE Henry Gorges (b.c.1665-1718) of Eye and Mynde, Herefordshire, one cup, cover and salver each by bequest to his two daughters, Miss Meliora Gorges (d.1745) and Mary Huxley (née Gorges), Miss Meliora's cup, cover and salver by bequest to her sister's daughter in 1745, Miss Anna Maria Huxley (1728-1793), who married Ralph Cope Hopton (1726-1797), in 1748. With Garrard and Company, London, by 1878, Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery K.G. (1847-1929), Prime Minister, purchased from Garrard and Company, 24 December 1878, '2 cups and covers £270-0- 0', then by descent to, Neil Archibald Primrose, 7th Earl of Rosebery (b.1929), The Rosebery Family Trust; Magnificent Silver-gilt, Objects-of-Vertu and Miniatures from the Rothschild and Rosebery Collection, Mentmore; Sotheby's, London, 11 February 1999, lot 25. With S. J. Phillips, London. Sir Arthur Gilbert K.B. (1913-2001), of Beverley Hills, California, collector and philanthropist. Property of The Late Sir Arthur Gilbert to be sold for the benefit of The Gilbert Collection at Somerset House; Christie's, New York, 27 October 2005, lot 466. A Distinguished Private Collection; Christie's, New York, 17 May 2012, lot 151. LITERATURE The will of Henry Gorges of Eye, Public Record Mss. PROB 11/568/446 , 1718. R. & S. Garrard, Inventory of the Mentmore and London Plate belonging to the Right Hon.ble the Earl of Rosebery, 1879, p. 113, ' 2 antique chased strap pattern 2 handle Cups & Covers'. R. & S. Garrard and Company Limited, Inventory of the Plate at Garrard & Co. Ltd., the property of The Right Honourable the Earl of Rosebery, K.G. , 1909, chest 57. SALES HISTORY 1878 – 24 th December. Sold to 5 th Earl of Rosebery K.G. (1847-1929) Prime Minister by Garrard & Co, Crown Jewellers and Royal Silversmiths. £ 270-0-0. 1999 – 11 th February. Lot 25. Sotheby’s. Magnificent Silver Gilt from the Rothschild and Roseberry Collection, Mentmore. Realised £ 100,000 plus premium. 2005 – 27 th October. Lot 466. Christie’s, New York. Property of The Late Sir Arthur Gilbert for the benefit of the Gilbert Collection at Somerset House. Realised $ 192,000. 2012 – 17 th May. Lot 151. Christie’s New York, A Distinguished Private Collection. Realised $ 140,500

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