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Lot Essay
The History of the Casket
The documented history of the casket dates back to 1815. The toilet service from which it comes features in Blore's guide book to Burghley, A Guide to Burghley House, Northamptonshire, the Seat of the Marquis of Exeter. He records it in the State Bed Dressing Room, otherwise known as the First George Room, describing it as 'A superb suit of dressing plate, formerly belonging to King William III'. It is similarly described in the Marquess' 1824 plate inventory - 'Gilt Toilet Service called King William III...2 Large Boxes' and in the Garrards inventory of 1880 'Silver Gilt Toilet Service. King William III. A.D. 1695...2 10 inch oblong engraved boxes, with gadroon Borders on Ball feet.'
A note in the 2nd Marquess' Day Book/Diary, recently discovered by Jon Culverhouse, the curator at Burghley House, records that the service had been a gift from his stepmother Elizabeth, Dowager Marchioness of Exeter (1757-1837). 'Silver Gilt Toilet once that of King William IIId given to Lord Exeter by the Dowager Lady Exeter...'. He also records that is was first used by the Duchess of Kent on her visit to Burghley in September 1835 with her daughter, the future Queen Victoria, '...& first used by HRH the Duchess of Kent on her visiting Burghley with the Princess Victoria Septr 21st 1835'. The Duchess and Princess Victoria stayed for a ball held in their honour, having been greeted by huge crowds in Stamford in spite of the heavy rain. The young Princess Victoria was very much impressed by Burghley and its furnishings, commenting in her journal that the house was '... a very fine and large building...very handsomely furnished, and there are many fine pictures by the old Masters.' Although she was feeling unwell she attended the dinner and the ball which followed, dancing a quadrille with Lord Exeter before retiring at 11.00pm.
As discussed below the cover of the casket displays a Continental style cypher 'DIG' or 'DSG' with a coronet above, all flanked by lions which have been seen in the past as heraldic supporters. There have been a number of differing suggestions as to the identity of the lady to whom the toilet service first belonged. In the 1960 catalogue description it was suggested that a possible candidate might be Jemima, daughter and co-heir of Thomas, 2nd Baron Crew. She married in 1695 Henry Grey who was styled Lord Grey (or de Grey) until 1702. He subsequently became Marquess of Kent in 1706 and Duke of Kent in 1710. The question of the coronet in the style of one used by a French Marquis' remained unanswered. Timothy Schroder, op. cit., p. 536 puts forward two possible candidates. The first, Caroline, 2nd wife of Meinhardt, 3rd Duke of Schomberg (1641-1719), had married in 1695, but sadly died the following year. The Duke's heraldic supporters were two lions sejant, the pose of the lions on the casket. The second candidate is Isabella Bennet (c.1620-1685). She was the daughter and heir of Henry Bennet, 1st and last Earl of Arlington (1618-1685). She married Henry Fitzroy, 1st Duke of Grafton (1663-1690), therefore during her widowhood, and before her remarriage in 1698 to Sir Thomas Hamner, she would have been Isabella, Dowager Duchess of Grafton. The supporters of the Arlington arms were also lions, however they were blazoned as being crowned with ducal coronets. Once more the coronet proves to be a problem.
A third possibility is suggested by Schroder. The convention of a cypher surmounted by a coronet is one which is most commonly found in the Netherlands rather than England. The commission could quite possibly have come from a Dutch member of King William III's court. Moreover, it was quite usual for the Dutch to adopt a coronet in their arms; being a Republic until 1810, there was no official codification of arms or the use of coronets. This could lead to confusion. It is said a French traveller visiting Amsterdam was amazed by the number of noble arms with coronets of rank adorning the doors of coaches 'J’avais toujours cru... que les Hollandais étaient un peuple de commerçants et de bourgeois; mais, voyant toutes ces armoiries, je m’aperçois qu’il y a des nobles ici comme à Venise - I had always believed...that the Dutch were a people of trade and bourgeois; but, seeing all these coats of arms, I realise that there are nobles here as in Venice'.
The Identity of the Engraver
This casket comes from 'one of the finest surviving toilet services of the seventeenth century', as described by Timothy Schroder in his catalogue entry for the basin from the service, now in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (T. Schroder, British and Continental Gold and Silver in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2009, p. 536, cat no. 205). The most striking feature of both the casket and the basin is the virtuoso engraving. The overall theme is that of love and fertility portrayed with the classical iconography of putti symbolising love, the cornucopia of plenty and the flaming urn of immortality. Although the identification of the cypher engraved on the cover remains a mystery, the identity of the engraver has been much discussed and debated. An early attribution by John Hayward in Huguenot Silver in England 1688–1727, London, 1959, pl. 71, suggested the French engraver Simon Gribelin (1661-1733), regarding it as his 'finest surviving work'.
Charles Oman, attributed the work to 'The Master of George Vertue' in English Engraved Silver, 1150-1900, London, 1978, p. 63, referred to by Horace Walpole as 'a shadowy character' in his 18th century biography of the engraver and antiquary George Vertue (1684-1756). The discovery of a signature 'B. GENTOT IN. FECIT' on the magnificent silver table at Chatsworth in 1979 led Arthur Grimwade to identify the shadowy character as Blaise Gentot, a French born engraver. He cited a corps of work which he attributed to his hand, including the present lot. A particular leitmotif first noticed by Oman was the use of an architectural entablature or plinth to ground the heraldic supporters within the cartouche. The convention at the time placed the heraldic animals, birds or figures on a mere scroll. The berried laurels branches that fill the background of the scene on the box, and which flank the coronets in many of the other cartouches attributed to Gentot, were seen by Grimwade as another signature of his style.
Gentot was born in Lyon in 1658, the son of the engraver Nicolas Gentot. His arrival in England is placed around 1683 on the basis of Oman's identification of his work on a tankard of that date. He worked both with silversmiths, publishers and clockmakers, providing a plate for Jean Tijou's Nouveau Livre de Serrurerie, pl. XX, depicting the garden screen at Hampton Court. The engraving on the King's Tompion, made for King William III, now in the British Museum, was also attributed to Gentot by Grimwade. In his Apollo article 'The Master of George Vertue' Grimwade cited a group of London made works which he felt were the work of Gentot, based on a comparison of the engraved cartouches with his autographed work on the Chatsworth table top. The pieces were:
A Charles II silver tankard, London, 1683, published in Oman, op. cit., pl. 67.
A Charles II rosewater dish, mark of William Harrison, London, 1677, engraved after 1684 for the Earl of Kildare, now the Gilbert Collection, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
A James II silver-gilt cadinet, mark of Anthony Nelme, 1688, for King William and Queen Mary, now at The Tower of London.
A William and Mary silver chocolate pot, mark of Phillip Rollos, London, circa 1690, for King William and Queen Mary, private collection.
A William and Mary silver tankard, London, mark of George Garthorne, London, 1692, presented by King William and Queen Mary to the Dutch captain who piloted the King during a storm, now at The Bank of England.
A William III silver-gilt toilet service, mark of Pierre Harache, London, 1695, part at Burghley House, Lincolnshire, The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, The St. Louis Museum, U.S.A., private collections and the casket offered here.
A William III silver-gilt rosewater dish, mark of Pierre Harache, London, 1697, for the Duke of Devonshire, now at the British Museum.
A pair of William III wine coolers, mark of David Willaume, London, 1698, for the Duke of Devonshire, remains at Chatsworth, Derbyshire.
A William III silver rosewater dish and a pair of ewers, mark of Benjamin Pyne, London, 1699, for the Earl of Kent, private collection.
A William III silver rosewater dish, mark of David Willaume, London, 1699, for the Earl of Jersey, now Queen's College, Cambridge.
A William III gold ewer and basin, Pierre Platel, London, 1701, for the Duke of Devonshire, remains at Chatsworth, Derbyshire.
Despite the patronage of the monarchy and the leading aristocratic families of the day it is thought that Gentot left England as a bankrupt, as recorded by Walpole who wrote that George Vertue's master 'who engraved arms on plate and had the chief business in London; but who being extravagantly broke and retuned to his own country France'. Gentot's apprentice, George Vertue gave the date of his first apprenticeship as 25 March 1697. Allowing for the 'three or four years' he worked under this master Gentot could have left the country sometime between spring 1700 and 1701. However, the date of the gold ewer and basin engraved for the Duke of Devonshire, which cannot have been hallmarked earlier than the 29th May 1701, suggests he left the country some time after this date.
Grimwade continues to identify two further commissions he believed to have been engraved by Gentot's hand - two rosewater dishes and ewers both then thought to be by the Lille silversmith Elie Pacot. The dishes are magnificently engraved with almost identical cartouches, each of which now enclose a later coat-of-arms. The first displays the arms of the 1st Duke of Bridgewater (1681-1745) and his second wife whom he married in 1722. It is now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and was made by Elie Pacot. The second dish, now in the collection of the City of Westminster was re-engraved with the arms of the Sir William Codrington 1st Bt. (d.1738) and his wife Elizabeth Bethel, whom he married in 1718. It is now identified as the work of The Brussels silversmith Hermanus Coppens. The creation of the baronetcy in 1721 and the baronet's badge in the arms dates the engraving to after this date. Notwithstanding the later arms, traces of the original armorial engraving are visible on the Bridgewater Dish. Grimwade identified these as belonging to the great general, John, Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722). Despite the presence of the initials of Queen Anne, who succeeded William March 1702, Grimwade dated the dishes to circa 1692 and thought each had been in the possession of Marlborough and Codrington, who also served as a soldier on the continent, some time before Gentot's departure from England.
Tessa Murdoch in her article 'Ducal Splendour: silver for a military hero, The Elie Pacot ewer and basin made for John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, Silver Studies, the Journal of the Silver Society, 2007, no. 22, discusses the dish and ewer at length. Work by the French scholar, Nicole Cartier, the expert on Lille goldsmiths, has revised the dating of the Marlborough dish to between November 1711 and November 1712. This places it, and its almost identical twin with the Codrington arms, outside the period Gentot was working in England. Murdoch attributes the engraving to Simon Gribelin (1662-1733) having compared the cartouche to the work of Gribelin for The Earl of Orkney and John Cataret in the Gribelin album preserved in the British Museum, (folios 126-7). Schroder op. cit., p. 537 also questions the validity of the attribution of engraving on the group of works based on the similarities of the engraved ornament alone, citing similar work produced after Gentot's departure, including a dish made for The Earl of Stafford by John Bache, now in the Hartman Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, illustrated in C. Hartop, The Huguenot Legacy, English Silver, 1690-1760, London, 1996, no. 3, p. 81.
Although Oman and Grimwade's identification of the engraver may be open to discussion the work is questionably magnificent. It must be by the hand of one of two most accomplished engravers of the time. Blaise Gentot and Simon Griblein were both masters of the technique. They are the most highly regarded practitioners of the engravers art in Britain from the final years of the 17th century and the dawn of the 18th century. They embellished the work of the greatest silversmith of the period, whose ranks had been swelled by the arrival of the Huguenot silversmiths, fleeing religious persecution in France, such as Pierre Harache, the maker of the present lot.
Pierre Harache I (1639-1712)
There has been much confusion in the past as to the exact working dates of Pierre Harache I and the attribution of his work between him and Pierre Harache II. Timothy Schroder, op. cit., p. 1247, acknowledges the work of two researchers who corrected previous assumptions. Claude Gerard Cassan in his book Les Orfèvres de Normandie, Paris 1980, p. 217 and Julian Cousins in his article 'Pierre Harache I and II', Silver Studies, The Journal of the Silver Society, no. 19, 2005, pp. 71-77, established the birth and death dates of Pierre Harache I and his relationship to Harache II, once thought to be his son, now identified as his cousin. Harache I had long been thought dead by 1697 therefore many of his later works had in the past been attributed to Harache II. Harache's I corps of work has grown considerable following the new evidence that he was active until at least 1705 and did not die until 1712. Harache II is now thought to have produced very little of great importance. From 1713 until 1717 when he left the country he was the recipient of charitable payments.
Pierre Harache I was born into a long established dynasty of Rouen goldsmiths in 1639. His father, also Pierre, and his mother Mariele François had twelve children. He served his apprenticeship there and practiced as a silversmith in the town, marrying his wife Anne. It is now thought he travelled to London via Paris. A court case in the French capital records his prosecution for not returning items entrusted to him for restoration, as cited in the catalogue entry for the ewers he made for the Earl of Chesterfield in 1700 (Sotheby's, London, 5 July 2017, lot 22).
It is generally thought that he travelled to London for the first time in 1681. A customs record from October of that year, preserved in the The Calendar of Treasury Books, 1681- 1685 records his entry into England. The Customs Commissioners were instructed to 'deliver Customs free to Peter Harrack[sic], a French Protestant lately arrived from France, 113 ounces of new white plate and 125 ounces of old plate which he has brought with him, the customs whereon would be 50s. and 3l.' It has been suggested that this exemption may have been due to the influence of wealthy patrons, who had encountered his work in Paris, and who were awaiting his arrival in England. It is significant that he was made free of the Goldsmiths’ Company in June 1682 on the order of the court of Aldermen, the company papers of the time recording that he had 'likely come from France to avoid persecution and live quietly'. It was around this time that he registered his first mark. His earliest recorded works are a pair of candlesticks of 1682, (sold Christies London, 13 June 2001, lot 163). Another early work is a two handled cup of 1685 in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. A major work from his early days in London, the Capel Basket of 1686, also in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum coincides with his election to the Livery of the Goldsmiths' Company in 1687.
It is evident from his surviving work that he was perhaps the most successful Huguenot goldsmith of the time. He counted the monarchs, King William and Queen Mary, Queen Anne, the Dukes of Devonshire, Marlborough and Hamilton and the Earl of Chesterfield and many other eminent members of the aristocracy as his clients. Perhaps his greatest surviving commission is the wine fountain and cistern weighing over 2000 ounces which were made for the Duke of Marlborough. He also created a magnificent wine cistern presented by Queen Anne to the Barber Surgeons' Company in 1697. He was commissioned by the 3rd Duke of Hamilton to create a dressing table service for his wife. Dr. Rosalind Marshall, whom we would like to thank for drawing our attention to the invoices and correspondence, lists a payment made by the Duke secretary to Anne Harache on 20 February 1689 for Duchess Anne's 'tuillet', having previously paid £10 (Hamilton Archives F2/501/2 and 3). The final invoice for the service, its case and a case for a chamber pot amounted to £111 18s 4d (Hamilton Archives F2/509/21). The correspondence gives an insite into the difficulties in transporting such a valuable set to the Duke Scottish seat. He was loathed to send it by sea to Leith unless it was accompanied by a convoy.
The wealth of his patrons is also demonstrated by the usually large number of very rare survivals in gold from his workshop. These include a gold stand made for King William III in 1691 recorded in the Hanoverian collection of the Dukes of Cumberland. A gold tumbler cup of 1702, now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and a Richmond Gold Race Cup of 1705, presented by Queen Anne, sold Christies, London, 20 November 2001, lot 10. He also created a gold plate for the Duke of Marlborough. Intriguingly he seems to have possessed a piece of French Royal gold plate. Hugh Tait, in his paper 'Huguenots in Britain and France' in the symposium publication Huguenots in Britain and their French Background 1660-1880, 1987, p. 101 makes reference to a notice from the The London Gazette for 3-7 November 1687 which offers a sizeable reward of £5 for the return of 'a gold cruit [sic] with the French King's arms on it, weight about 30oz' to Mr Peter Harache, a French Goldsmith, at the corner of Suffolk Street, Charing Cross'.
The documented history of the casket dates back to 1815. The toilet service from which it comes features in Blore's guide book to Burghley, A Guide to Burghley House, Northamptonshire, the Seat of the Marquis of Exeter. He records it in the State Bed Dressing Room, otherwise known as the First George Room, describing it as 'A superb suit of dressing plate, formerly belonging to King William III'. It is similarly described in the Marquess' 1824 plate inventory - 'Gilt Toilet Service called King William III...2 Large Boxes' and in the Garrards inventory of 1880 'Silver Gilt Toilet Service. King William III. A.D. 1695...2 10 inch oblong engraved boxes, with gadroon Borders on Ball feet.'
A note in the 2nd Marquess' Day Book/Diary, recently discovered by Jon Culverhouse, the curator at Burghley House, records that the service had been a gift from his stepmother Elizabeth, Dowager Marchioness of Exeter (1757-1837). 'Silver Gilt Toilet once that of King William IIId given to Lord Exeter by the Dowager Lady Exeter...'. He also records that is was first used by the Duchess of Kent on her visit to Burghley in September 1835 with her daughter, the future Queen Victoria, '...& first used by HRH the Duchess of Kent on her visiting Burghley with the Princess Victoria Septr 21st 1835'. The Duchess and Princess Victoria stayed for a ball held in their honour, having been greeted by huge crowds in Stamford in spite of the heavy rain. The young Princess Victoria was very much impressed by Burghley and its furnishings, commenting in her journal that the house was '... a very fine and large building...very handsomely furnished, and there are many fine pictures by the old Masters.' Although she was feeling unwell she attended the dinner and the ball which followed, dancing a quadrille with Lord Exeter before retiring at 11.00pm.
As discussed below the cover of the casket displays a Continental style cypher 'DIG' or 'DSG' with a coronet above, all flanked by lions which have been seen in the past as heraldic supporters. There have been a number of differing suggestions as to the identity of the lady to whom the toilet service first belonged. In the 1960 catalogue description it was suggested that a possible candidate might be Jemima, daughter and co-heir of Thomas, 2nd Baron Crew. She married in 1695 Henry Grey who was styled Lord Grey (or de Grey) until 1702. He subsequently became Marquess of Kent in 1706 and Duke of Kent in 1710. The question of the coronet in the style of one used by a French Marquis' remained unanswered. Timothy Schroder, op. cit., p. 536 puts forward two possible candidates. The first, Caroline, 2nd wife of Meinhardt, 3rd Duke of Schomberg (1641-1719), had married in 1695, but sadly died the following year. The Duke's heraldic supporters were two lions sejant, the pose of the lions on the casket. The second candidate is Isabella Bennet (c.1620-1685). She was the daughter and heir of Henry Bennet, 1st and last Earl of Arlington (1618-1685). She married Henry Fitzroy, 1st Duke of Grafton (1663-1690), therefore during her widowhood, and before her remarriage in 1698 to Sir Thomas Hamner, she would have been Isabella, Dowager Duchess of Grafton. The supporters of the Arlington arms were also lions, however they were blazoned as being crowned with ducal coronets. Once more the coronet proves to be a problem.
A third possibility is suggested by Schroder. The convention of a cypher surmounted by a coronet is one which is most commonly found in the Netherlands rather than England. The commission could quite possibly have come from a Dutch member of King William III's court. Moreover, it was quite usual for the Dutch to adopt a coronet in their arms; being a Republic until 1810, there was no official codification of arms or the use of coronets. This could lead to confusion. It is said a French traveller visiting Amsterdam was amazed by the number of noble arms with coronets of rank adorning the doors of coaches 'J’avais toujours cru... que les Hollandais étaient un peuple de commerçants et de bourgeois; mais, voyant toutes ces armoiries, je m’aperçois qu’il y a des nobles ici comme à Venise - I had always believed...that the Dutch were a people of trade and bourgeois; but, seeing all these coats of arms, I realise that there are nobles here as in Venice'.
The Identity of the Engraver
This casket comes from 'one of the finest surviving toilet services of the seventeenth century', as described by Timothy Schroder in his catalogue entry for the basin from the service, now in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (T. Schroder, British and Continental Gold and Silver in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2009, p. 536, cat no. 205). The most striking feature of both the casket and the basin is the virtuoso engraving. The overall theme is that of love and fertility portrayed with the classical iconography of putti symbolising love, the cornucopia of plenty and the flaming urn of immortality. Although the identification of the cypher engraved on the cover remains a mystery, the identity of the engraver has been much discussed and debated. An early attribution by John Hayward in Huguenot Silver in England 1688–1727, London, 1959, pl. 71, suggested the French engraver Simon Gribelin (1661-1733), regarding it as his 'finest surviving work'.
Charles Oman, attributed the work to 'The Master of George Vertue' in English Engraved Silver, 1150-1900, London, 1978, p. 63, referred to by Horace Walpole as 'a shadowy character' in his 18th century biography of the engraver and antiquary George Vertue (1684-1756). The discovery of a signature 'B. GENTOT IN. FECIT' on the magnificent silver table at Chatsworth in 1979 led Arthur Grimwade to identify the shadowy character as Blaise Gentot, a French born engraver. He cited a corps of work which he attributed to his hand, including the present lot. A particular leitmotif first noticed by Oman was the use of an architectural entablature or plinth to ground the heraldic supporters within the cartouche. The convention at the time placed the heraldic animals, birds or figures on a mere scroll. The berried laurels branches that fill the background of the scene on the box, and which flank the coronets in many of the other cartouches attributed to Gentot, were seen by Grimwade as another signature of his style.
Gentot was born in Lyon in 1658, the son of the engraver Nicolas Gentot. His arrival in England is placed around 1683 on the basis of Oman's identification of his work on a tankard of that date. He worked both with silversmiths, publishers and clockmakers, providing a plate for Jean Tijou's Nouveau Livre de Serrurerie, pl. XX, depicting the garden screen at Hampton Court. The engraving on the King's Tompion, made for King William III, now in the British Museum, was also attributed to Gentot by Grimwade. In his Apollo article 'The Master of George Vertue' Grimwade cited a group of London made works which he felt were the work of Gentot, based on a comparison of the engraved cartouches with his autographed work on the Chatsworth table top. The pieces were:
A Charles II silver tankard, London, 1683, published in Oman, op. cit., pl. 67.
A Charles II rosewater dish, mark of William Harrison, London, 1677, engraved after 1684 for the Earl of Kildare, now the Gilbert Collection, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
A James II silver-gilt cadinet, mark of Anthony Nelme, 1688, for King William and Queen Mary, now at The Tower of London.
A William and Mary silver chocolate pot, mark of Phillip Rollos, London, circa 1690, for King William and Queen Mary, private collection.
A William and Mary silver tankard, London, mark of George Garthorne, London, 1692, presented by King William and Queen Mary to the Dutch captain who piloted the King during a storm, now at The Bank of England.
A William III silver-gilt toilet service, mark of Pierre Harache, London, 1695, part at Burghley House, Lincolnshire, The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, The St. Louis Museum, U.S.A., private collections and the casket offered here.
A William III silver-gilt rosewater dish, mark of Pierre Harache, London, 1697, for the Duke of Devonshire, now at the British Museum.
A pair of William III wine coolers, mark of David Willaume, London, 1698, for the Duke of Devonshire, remains at Chatsworth, Derbyshire.
A William III silver rosewater dish and a pair of ewers, mark of Benjamin Pyne, London, 1699, for the Earl of Kent, private collection.
A William III silver rosewater dish, mark of David Willaume, London, 1699, for the Earl of Jersey, now Queen's College, Cambridge.
A William III gold ewer and basin, Pierre Platel, London, 1701, for the Duke of Devonshire, remains at Chatsworth, Derbyshire.
Despite the patronage of the monarchy and the leading aristocratic families of the day it is thought that Gentot left England as a bankrupt, as recorded by Walpole who wrote that George Vertue's master 'who engraved arms on plate and had the chief business in London; but who being extravagantly broke and retuned to his own country France'. Gentot's apprentice, George Vertue gave the date of his first apprenticeship as 25 March 1697. Allowing for the 'three or four years' he worked under this master Gentot could have left the country sometime between spring 1700 and 1701. However, the date of the gold ewer and basin engraved for the Duke of Devonshire, which cannot have been hallmarked earlier than the 29th May 1701, suggests he left the country some time after this date.
Grimwade continues to identify two further commissions he believed to have been engraved by Gentot's hand - two rosewater dishes and ewers both then thought to be by the Lille silversmith Elie Pacot. The dishes are magnificently engraved with almost identical cartouches, each of which now enclose a later coat-of-arms. The first displays the arms of the 1st Duke of Bridgewater (1681-1745) and his second wife whom he married in 1722. It is now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and was made by Elie Pacot. The second dish, now in the collection of the City of Westminster was re-engraved with the arms of the Sir William Codrington 1st Bt. (d.1738) and his wife Elizabeth Bethel, whom he married in 1718. It is now identified as the work of The Brussels silversmith Hermanus Coppens. The creation of the baronetcy in 1721 and the baronet's badge in the arms dates the engraving to after this date. Notwithstanding the later arms, traces of the original armorial engraving are visible on the Bridgewater Dish. Grimwade identified these as belonging to the great general, John, Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722). Despite the presence of the initials of Queen Anne, who succeeded William March 1702, Grimwade dated the dishes to circa 1692 and thought each had been in the possession of Marlborough and Codrington, who also served as a soldier on the continent, some time before Gentot's departure from England.
Tessa Murdoch in her article 'Ducal Splendour: silver for a military hero, The Elie Pacot ewer and basin made for John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, Silver Studies, the Journal of the Silver Society, 2007, no. 22, discusses the dish and ewer at length. Work by the French scholar, Nicole Cartier, the expert on Lille goldsmiths, has revised the dating of the Marlborough dish to between November 1711 and November 1712. This places it, and its almost identical twin with the Codrington arms, outside the period Gentot was working in England. Murdoch attributes the engraving to Simon Gribelin (1662-1733) having compared the cartouche to the work of Gribelin for The Earl of Orkney and John Cataret in the Gribelin album preserved in the British Museum, (folios 126-7). Schroder op. cit., p. 537 also questions the validity of the attribution of engraving on the group of works based on the similarities of the engraved ornament alone, citing similar work produced after Gentot's departure, including a dish made for The Earl of Stafford by John Bache, now in the Hartman Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, illustrated in C. Hartop, The Huguenot Legacy, English Silver, 1690-1760, London, 1996, no. 3, p. 81.
Although Oman and Grimwade's identification of the engraver may be open to discussion the work is questionably magnificent. It must be by the hand of one of two most accomplished engravers of the time. Blaise Gentot and Simon Griblein were both masters of the technique. They are the most highly regarded practitioners of the engravers art in Britain from the final years of the 17th century and the dawn of the 18th century. They embellished the work of the greatest silversmith of the period, whose ranks had been swelled by the arrival of the Huguenot silversmiths, fleeing religious persecution in France, such as Pierre Harache, the maker of the present lot.
Pierre Harache I (1639-1712)
There has been much confusion in the past as to the exact working dates of Pierre Harache I and the attribution of his work between him and Pierre Harache II. Timothy Schroder, op. cit., p. 1247, acknowledges the work of two researchers who corrected previous assumptions. Claude Gerard Cassan in his book Les Orfèvres de Normandie, Paris 1980, p. 217 and Julian Cousins in his article 'Pierre Harache I and II', Silver Studies, The Journal of the Silver Society, no. 19, 2005, pp. 71-77, established the birth and death dates of Pierre Harache I and his relationship to Harache II, once thought to be his son, now identified as his cousin. Harache I had long been thought dead by 1697 therefore many of his later works had in the past been attributed to Harache II. Harache's I corps of work has grown considerable following the new evidence that he was active until at least 1705 and did not die until 1712. Harache II is now thought to have produced very little of great importance. From 1713 until 1717 when he left the country he was the recipient of charitable payments.
Pierre Harache I was born into a long established dynasty of Rouen goldsmiths in 1639. His father, also Pierre, and his mother Mariele François had twelve children. He served his apprenticeship there and practiced as a silversmith in the town, marrying his wife Anne. It is now thought he travelled to London via Paris. A court case in the French capital records his prosecution for not returning items entrusted to him for restoration, as cited in the catalogue entry for the ewers he made for the Earl of Chesterfield in 1700 (Sotheby's, London, 5 July 2017, lot 22).
It is generally thought that he travelled to London for the first time in 1681. A customs record from October of that year, preserved in the The Calendar of Treasury Books, 1681- 1685 records his entry into England. The Customs Commissioners were instructed to 'deliver Customs free to Peter Harrack[sic], a French Protestant lately arrived from France, 113 ounces of new white plate and 125 ounces of old plate which he has brought with him, the customs whereon would be 50s. and 3l.' It has been suggested that this exemption may have been due to the influence of wealthy patrons, who had encountered his work in Paris, and who were awaiting his arrival in England. It is significant that he was made free of the Goldsmiths’ Company in June 1682 on the order of the court of Aldermen, the company papers of the time recording that he had 'likely come from France to avoid persecution and live quietly'. It was around this time that he registered his first mark. His earliest recorded works are a pair of candlesticks of 1682, (sold Christies London, 13 June 2001, lot 163). Another early work is a two handled cup of 1685 in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. A major work from his early days in London, the Capel Basket of 1686, also in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum coincides with his election to the Livery of the Goldsmiths' Company in 1687.
It is evident from his surviving work that he was perhaps the most successful Huguenot goldsmith of the time. He counted the monarchs, King William and Queen Mary, Queen Anne, the Dukes of Devonshire, Marlborough and Hamilton and the Earl of Chesterfield and many other eminent members of the aristocracy as his clients. Perhaps his greatest surviving commission is the wine fountain and cistern weighing over 2000 ounces which were made for the Duke of Marlborough. He also created a magnificent wine cistern presented by Queen Anne to the Barber Surgeons' Company in 1697. He was commissioned by the 3rd Duke of Hamilton to create a dressing table service for his wife. Dr. Rosalind Marshall, whom we would like to thank for drawing our attention to the invoices and correspondence, lists a payment made by the Duke secretary to Anne Harache on 20 February 1689 for Duchess Anne's 'tuillet', having previously paid £10 (Hamilton Archives F2/501/2 and 3). The final invoice for the service, its case and a case for a chamber pot amounted to £111 18s 4d (Hamilton Archives F2/509/21). The correspondence gives an insite into the difficulties in transporting such a valuable set to the Duke Scottish seat. He was loathed to send it by sea to Leith unless it was accompanied by a convoy.
The wealth of his patrons is also demonstrated by the usually large number of very rare survivals in gold from his workshop. These include a gold stand made for King William III in 1691 recorded in the Hanoverian collection of the Dukes of Cumberland. A gold tumbler cup of 1702, now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and a Richmond Gold Race Cup of 1705, presented by Queen Anne, sold Christies, London, 20 November 2001, lot 10. He also created a gold plate for the Duke of Marlborough. Intriguingly he seems to have possessed a piece of French Royal gold plate. Hugh Tait, in his paper 'Huguenots in Britain and France' in the symposium publication Huguenots in Britain and their French Background 1660-1880, 1987, p. 101 makes reference to a notice from the The London Gazette for 3-7 November 1687 which offers a sizeable reward of £5 for the return of 'a gold cruit [sic] with the French King's arms on it, weight about 30oz' to Mr Peter Harache, a French Goldsmith, at the corner of Suffolk Street, Charing Cross'.