A Set of Silver-Mounted Steel Fire Tools

Three pieces.

These fire irons are based on a 17^th century set now in the Queen’s Bedchamber at Ham House (illustrated in Ralph Edwards & Percy Macquoid, The Dictionary of English Furniture, rev. ed., 1954, vol. II, p. 67, fig. 43). Other sets with possible Ham House provenance are in The Collection of Irwin Untermyer, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and in The Collection of the Earl of Dysart (see, Yvonne Hackenbroch, English and Other Silver in the Irwin Untermyer Collection, 1963, no. 152, p. 73 and pl. 152). Another set was sold by Christie’s, Monaco, from The Collection of Hubert de Givenchy, December 4, 1993, lot 54, and another pair of similar age to the present lot was sold by Sotheby’s, London, from The Collection of Sir Henry Price, November 20, 2000, lot 80. These ‘copies’ were possibly made for, and supplied by, the well-known London firm of decorators, Lenygon and Company, Burlington Street, London.