A pair of German silver kettle drums for The Life Guard Regiment in 1779, and original kettle drum banners both with the arms of George III King of Great Britain and Ireland K.G., Elector and later King of Hanover

circular, raised on stylized cornucopia supports connected by ribbon-tied berried foliage, the sides applied with the arms of George III King of Great Britain and Ireland, Elector and later King of Hanover K.G. (1738-1820) below 8 tensioning nuts for the skins rising from applied foliate discs, with original Kettledrum Banners, each of crimson velvet, embroidered with central devices of a Hanoverian crown surmounting a circular Garter enclosing the Royal Crest, flanked on either side by an embroidered star of the Order of the Garter. Edging of gold van - dyked lace above and below, with gold fringe to bottom edge.

Kettledrums were important symbols of royal association, having originally been carried by the attendants of a king or royal prince. A panoramic view of a military revue, by the Hanoverian Court painter Johan Franz Lüders (1695-1760), is including most if not all of the Hanoverian cavalry regiments of 1735. It shows only one regiment with silver kettledrums - the Life Guards- at the far left side of this painting. (see, Joachim Neimeyer, Die Revue bei Bemorode, Beckum, 1985) It is probable that the drums in the picture of 1735 were one of the three pairs of silver kettledrums that are recorded in a file of the Hofsilber-Inventarium 1760-1818 (NLA-HStH, Dep.103, IV, Nr.175) [18.Jh., in Blei Act 66 1672-1739]. These pairs are described as

3 paar Paucken alss: 1 paar Hannoversche, 1 paar Osnabrückische, I paar Zellische.

At least two of these pairs were 17th century, the Hanover examples having been made for Johann Friedrich Duke of Brunswick Lüneburg in Calenberg-Grubenhagen (1625-1679), and the Osnabrück pair for George’s I father Ernest Augustus when he became bishop of Osnabrück in 1662. While the Hanover pair were melted to produce metal or money for the A service (made initially by Robert-Joseph Auguste in Paris) the third pair from Celle were melted in 1779 to make the pair of drums now offered for sale. The file records that when the Celle pair were melted their weight was in fact less than previously recorded.  The real weight of 128 Marks 6 3/4 lot (about 29.5kg) was given to the silversmith Bunsen for the new drums on 22 April 1779. Of this, 99 marks 6 lot (about 22.8kg) were used for the new drums and the difference of 29 marks 3/4 lot was given to the Life Guards (LiebGarde-Regiments) in return for them paying the cost of turning the raw material into the drums.

In the inventory of the Hanover Silber-Kammer of 1880 an additional pair of silver kettledrums is mentioned: 2 Pauken gez. mit dem Eglischen Wappen und darunter WRIV. 125 Mark 13 12/16 loth. This pair of drums, made for William IV by the Hanoverian silversmith Jacob Petersen, delivered 5^th June 1832, is now in a private collection, on loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  William IV presented a matching pair of London-made drums to the 2nd Life Guards at Windsor in May 1831.  These are still in the collection of the Life Guards (exhibited in All the Queen's Horses: The Role of the Horse in British History (2003), no. 44.6) and appear in three 1922 paintings by Sir Alfred Munnings.

A fourth pair of silver kettle drums was presented by George III to the Household Cavalry in London in 1804.  Hallmarked by Peter, Anne, and William Bateman for the previous year, these also remain in the collection of their original recipients, the Household Cavalry.

Another pair of German silver kettledrums was made by Hossauer in Berlin, 1840. The drums were meant for the kurhessische Garde du Corps, for they are applied with the arms of Hesse below a ducal crown. In 1899 Emperor William II donated them to the 13^th Husarenregiment. This pair of kettledrums is now in the collection of Museum Schloss Friederichstein, Kassel. See Melitta Jonas Gold und Silber für den König, Berlin 1998, pp. 241-242.

Detail:
-Image: Vienna 18^th February 1868, Silver wedding anniversary of King George V and Queen Mary (Historisches Museum Hannover)

-For a portrait of George III King of Great Britain and Ireland, Elector and later King of Hanover (1738–1820), after Sir Thomas Lawrence, please see lot number 582.