WINE COOLERS FIT FOR AN EMPRESS
Parker & Wakelin
The partnership between John Parker and Edward Wakelin, trading as Parker & Wakelin (successors to Wickes & Netherton) ran from about 1759 to 1776. The business was continued thereafter by Edward Wakelin’s son, John in partnership with William Taylor. In the 19th century this firm became known as R. & S. Garrard & Co.
These coolers match another, larger pair, also Parker & Wakelin, London, 1763, which were in the collection of the Marquis of Lothian until they were sold in New York in 1941.1 A note accompanying the latter stated that they had originally been at Blickling Hall, Norfolk, home of John Hobart, 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire (1723-1793), an ancestor of Lord Lothian. Like the larger coolers, this present pair were part of the plate allocated to the Earl for his embassy to Russia and the court of Catherine the Great between 1762 and 1765.
The Client
The Earl was chosen for this important post partly for his strikingly handsome appearance, which was ‘likely to ingratiate him with the Empress Catherine.’2 She was duly impressed and during much of his time in Russia, the Empress was said to have ‘showered favours’ on Buckinghamshire, who wrote in his diary, 'to see her is to know that she could love and that her love would make the happiness of a lover worthy of her.’3
He was born in 1723 to John Hobart (1693-1756), from 1728 Baron Hobart of Blickling, and from 1746 1st Earl of Buckinghamshire. Despite considerable political experience, he was thought to owe his peerage to his sister Henrietta, Countess of Suffolk, Mistress to George II. The son served as M.P. for Norwich from 1747 to 1756, as Comptroller of the Household in 1755/56, Privy Councillor in 1756, Lord of the Bedchamber to George II from 1756 to 1760 and to George III from 1760 to 1767. Horace Walpole wrote a typically waspish description of him as ‘The Clearcake – fat, fair, sweet, and seen through in a moment.’4 He married in 1761 Mary Anne, daughter and co-heir of Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Drury, Bt., who brought him a fortune of £50,000.
The Embassy
The Earl was sent to Russia as part of the diplomatic maneuvering at the close of the Seven Years' War. His dispatches reveal how busy he was: keeping England informed of the shifting balances of power at the new Court, pushing for an Anglo-Russian alliance and trade treaties, feeling out the possibilities of a Northern Confederacy, and debating the fate of Poland after the death in 1763 of Augustus III. They also indicate how much entertaining was part of his duties. During one of the periods of unrest, he had all of the foreign ministers dining with him to discuss the situation, while at other times he hosted Catherine's Chancellor and her private secretary; of the latter, soon to be Secretary of State, he wrote, ‘the table is his first passion.’5 In April, 1763 the Earl wrote to Lord Halifax, ‘The Empress had flattered me with the hope that she would honour my house with her presence on Monday last, as she had done before at an entertainment of the same kind.’6
In August 1762 in preparation for his duties, Lord Buckinghamshire received an extensive allotment of plate from the Jewel House; he had hoped to arrive in time for Catherine's Coronation on 22 September but in the event his plans were thwarted. This first selection of silver included an epergne, dinner plates, sauce boats and salts to dazzle guests at his new posting.7 As the letters show, though, he was soon being blessed with visits from the Empress herself. The following year he ordered additional pieces, not listed in the Jewel House records, including a pair of baskets,8 a pair of large wine coolers,9 and the smaller pair of wine coolers offered here. They are all decorated with the Royal Arms, indicating they were viewed as official plate; on the Earl's resignation 20 September 1765, the Treasury records show him retaining 5,893 ounces of white plate and 1,066 ounces of gilt plate – the full allotment for an ambassador of the period.
The Wine Coolers
It is not surprising that the Earl did not include coolers in his initial selection, because silver wine coolers were not part of the standard dining equipage in England and had not been since about 1730. Ambassadors would conform to the practices of where they were posted; in 1763 the Jewel House issued ‘4 ice-pails’ to the Earl of Sandwich, destined for Madrid.10 And in 1768 Simon, Earl Harcourt, acquired two French coolers, then had an additional two copies made in England with which to equip himself as ambassador to Paris.11
The Russians followed the French practice of using silver wine coolers at the table. The service delivered by François-Thomas Germain for Empress Elizabeth in 1761 included four ‘seaux riches,’12 while the contemporary service delivered by Germain for Portugal (a close trading partner of England) did not contain this form. The four silver services delivered from England for Catherine the Great between 1774 and 1776 do not seem to have included wine coolers, but the services delivered for her from France in 1776-78 and 1782 and those from Augsburg in 1779-1781 did have this form.13 In 1775, even the service delivered by Auguste for George III at Herrenhausen would have wine coolers, but such vessels at that date were still rare in London.
For a wine-cooler, a French form quite outside their normal repertoire for English patrons, Parker & Wakelin turned quite reasonably to French models. The double-bellied shape and spreading grapevine handles of these coolers follows a design first published in Paris in 1748 by Pierre Germain, ‘Marchand Orfevre Joaillieu,’ in his Elements d’Orfevrerie divisés en deux Parties (pl. 73). This showcased contemporary Parisian taste, the outline having been used in 1744 by Claude II Ballin on a pair of coolers with spaniel-head handles.14 More important for Parker & Wakelin, however, this was one of the Germain designs copied by Robert Clee for his Book of Eighteen Leaves, published in London in 1757. Clee was an entrepreneurial engraver with premises on Panton Street, opposite Parker & Wakelin's premises. Not surprisingly, they subcontracted work to him, probably from the beginning of the partnership but certainly by 1765; that the two silversmiths received diamond rings in Clee's will attests to the closeness of the relationship.15
Although the original French engraving was from 1748, this design was still considered fashionable enough to be copied for the plates illustrating ‘Orfèvre’ in Diderot and D'Alembert’s Encyclopédie, which were issued between 1751 and 1766. This would have counted with the Earl of Buckinghamshire, an educated patron who extensively remodelled his family seat, Blickling Hall, on his return from Russia. Parker & Wakelin, however, or their suppliers, do not seem to have repeated this late rococo model for another customer. Within five years, they had a newer, Neoclassical model before them, when they were asked by Lord Harcourt to copy his Parisian rams' head wine-coolers for his embassy to France.
Later History
The Earl returned from Russia in 1765, with a tapestry of Peter the Great still displayed at Blickling, and a suite of emeralds given (according to family tradition) by Catherine herself.16 The trade treaty he had been working on was eventually signed in 1766. His first wife died in 1769 and he married the following year Caroline, daughter of the Rt. Hon. William Conolly (son of the Speaker of the House of Commons), ‘a young lady of blooming fifteen.’17 He focused on renovating Blickling. He also served as an unhappy and unsuccessful Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1776 to 1780, where to gain support for an unpopular government he had to rely on bribery and newly-minted peerages. Buckinghamshire then retired gratefully to Blickling, where he died of complications from gout in 1793. Neither marriage gave the Earl surviving heirs, so on his death Blickling passed to the second of his four daughters, Caroline, who had married the 2nd Baron Suffield. On her death without issue in 1850 the estate passed to William, 8th Marquis of Lothian, grandson of her elder sister.
Notes
1. Parke-Bernet Galleries Inc., 30 East 57th Street, New York, 18 October 1941, lot 26, when the catalogue note read: ‘These beautiful urns were presented by King George III to the 5th Marquess of Lothian, K.T., following his marriage in 1762. Collection of the Marquess of Lothian, Blickling Hall, Norfolk.’ They were sold again at Sotheby’s, New York, 21 October 1997, lot 265, $525,000
2. The Complete Peerage
3. Cited in the sale catalogue of the Lothian emerald necklace, the emeralds supposedly a present from Catherine the Great, Sotheby's, New York, 28 November 2000, lot 176; Christie’s, Geneva, 20 November 2008, lot 269
4. Blickling Hall, The National Trust, 1972, p. 20
5. Adelaide D'Arcy Collyer, editor, The Despatches and Correspondence of John, Second Earl of Buckinghamshire, Ambassador to the Court of Catherine the Great II. of Russia, 1762-65, London, 1902, p. 16
6. Ibid, p. 21
7. Various other items from the Earl's Ambassadorial plate with the Royal Arms have appeared at auction. These include 24 dinner plates, William Cripps, London, 1748, and Sebastian & James Crespel, London, 1762, and seven meat dishes, William Cripps, London, 1748, and Thomas Heming, London, 1762 (Sotheby’s, London, 13 June 1983, lot 51); and two sauce tureens and stands, Thomas Heming, London, 1762, and twelve gilt dessert spoons, T. & W. Chawner, London, 1762 (Sotheby's, London, 15 May 2003, lots 97 and 99)
8. A pair of baskets with the Royal Arms, Thomas Heming, London, 1763, was probably another later addition. (Sotheby’s, London, 15 May 2003, lot 98)
9. Parker & Wakelin, London, 1763 (Sotheby’s, London, 15 |May 2003, lot 100)
10. Because Lord Sandwich never took up his position it is possible that his wine coolers were reissued to Lord Buckinghamshire; no other coolers appear in the Jewel House records for this period. The listed weight of 330oz. 10dwt. for the four Sandwich coolers, however, does not seem to match (even if grouped as pairs) with the Buckinghamshire scratch weights of ‘115=12’ and ‘115=’ for the larger coolers and ‘73=4’ and ‘76=0’ for the smaller.
11. Sold Sotheby’s, London, 20 November 2003, lots 196 and 197
12. Christiane Perrin, François-Thomas Germain, Orfèvre des Rois, Saint-Remy-en-l'Eau, 1993, p. 204
13. Marina Lopato, 'English Silver in St. Petersburg,’ British Art Treasures from Russian Imperial Collections in the Hermitage, New Haven: Yale, 1996, pp. 131-132. Bjorn R. Kommer, Zirbelnuss und Zarenadler: Augsburger Silber für Katharine II. von Russland, Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1997, pp. 48-49, 71 and 75
14. Sold from the collection of George Ortiz, Sotheby's, New York, 13 November 1996, lot 4
15. ‘Item I Give and bequeath to Mr Parker Mr Wakelin and [the King’s goldsmith] Thomas Heming Esquire a Diamond Ring Each of the value of Ten pounds to be made by themselves’ (Robert Clee’s will, signed 15 May 1773, proved 25 May 1773, Public Record Office, Kew, PROB 11/987); Clifford, pp. 49, 99, 101 and 164-166
16. Cited in the sale catalogue of the Lothian emerald necklace, the emeralds supposedly a present from Catherine the Great, Sotheby's, New York, 28 November 2000, lot 176; Christie’s, Geneva, 20 November 2008, lot 269
17. Ibid