Lot Essay
This massive monteith bowl is decorated in the distinctive historicist style of Edward Farrell, silversmith, who worked under the direction of antiquarian and retailer Kensington Lewis. Together they made a group of magnificent silver-gilt objects for their profligate patron, Frederick, Duke of York, second son of George III. Indeed, this monteith relates to the example commissioned by the Duke of York, now in the Gilbert Collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The Duke of York also commissioned two ewers, companions to the monteith, that were, like the present example, re-fashioned by Farrell from earlier hallmarked examples (see A. Phillips and J. Sloane, Antiquity Revisited: English and French Silver from the Collection of Audrey Love, 1997, pp. 62-80; the ewers bear hallmarks for 1807 and were decorated by Farrell for the Duke of York in 1823).