THE KING OF HANOVER'S SILVER-GILT SHIELD OF ACHILLES, Philip Rundell for Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, London, 1823

cast and chased after John Flaxman's design, modelled with scenes from the 18th book of the Iliad, the reverse with four rings at the rim and centre for attaching enarmes, also engraved with the cypher and arms of Ernest Augustus King of Hanover and inscribed THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES/ DESIGNED AND MODELLED BY THE LATE/ JOHN FLAXMAN R.A./ EXECUTED AND PUBLISHED BY RUNDELL BRIDGE AND CO./ LONDON 1838

Rundell Bridge & Rundell, London until 1838

Ernest Augustus Duke of Cumberland and King of Hanover and then by descent in the Hanoverian Royal family in Hanover and Austria until sold circa 1923

Josef van Mierlo, circa 1940 and then by descent in the van Mierlo family Essen, Belgium

Literature:

E. Alfred Jones, The Gold and Silver of Windsor Castle, Arden Press Letchworth, 1911 page XLVIII

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE: John Flaxman, R.A, 26 October-9 December 1979, pp 30-31

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE: ROYAL GOLDSMITHS The art of Rundell & Bridge 1797-1843,  Koopman Rare Art, 14 June-1 July 2005, text Christopher Hartop and contributors, notes 34 and 35 to pages 99-118 

Associated Literature:

Shirley Bury and Michael Snodin, `The Shield of Achilles by John Flaxman R.A.' in  Sotheby's Art at Auction, 1983-4, London, 1984, pp. 274-83

John Culme's cataloguing note, Important Gold and Silver, Sotheby's London, 3 May 1984, lot 124 

Some very minor scuffs. The overlapping border at the back has been slightly creased in one place. The back has not been cleaned and the border is slightly bent in one place.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

`The silver-gilt Shield of Achilles, designed and modelled by one of the greatest English sculptors of the regency, is an outstanding instance of a synthesis of the fine and decorative arts. The designer, John Flaxman was the most illustrious of the Royal Academicians associated with Rundell, Bridge & Rundell...' (S. Bury and M. Snodin, p.274)

Rundell, Bridge & Rundell and the Imperial Style

The royal goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge & Rundell are synonymous with the Imperial style in silver and silver-gilt which reflected the new pride and prosperity of Britain during the Napoleonic wars.  Although in large part influenced by the French emperor's predilection for dazzling display, and for gold, this new sculptural fashion in precious metal was nonetheless entirely British. Drawing on classical motifs from Greek and Roman architecture, the style celebrated massiveness, which had been advocated as the `principal characteristic of good Plate' by the architect and designer Charles Heathcote Tatham in 1806. Rundell's, as the largest and most successful suppliers of plate and jewels of the period, drove the fashion for monumental silverware. The sculptural qualities of silver and silver-gilt were exploited, not only on the table but also for sumptuous displays of buffet plate. The firm had realized early on that in order to undertake such ambitious work, and to keep its designs exclusive, it needed to have its own workshops and design studios. Their ensuing success meant that, unprecedented for the time, they were able to produce works of art on a speculative basis, and, led by the Prince Regent, the aristocracy, rich from the rise in rents caused by the wars, clamored to buy them from Rundell's premises in Ludgate Hill. It was a startling reversal of the traditional roles of patron and supplier, and it places Rundell's among the most innovative businesses of the nineteenth century.

John Flaxman and the Shield of Achilles

Conceived as a monumental recreation of the shield forged for Achilles, described in the 18^th book of Homer's Iliad, it represents a revival of the tradition of sculptural shields with narrative decoration that had been popular during the Renaissance period. Rundell's were also at the forefront of the growing trade in antique silver, and the presence on the London market around this time of works such as the early seventeenth century Genoese Lomellini ewers and basins and the sixteenth century Milanese Aldobrandini tazze no doubt provided ample inspiration for this new creation. As early as 1810 the partners, the irascible but shrewd Philip Rundell and the urbane master salesman John Bridge, had decided to produce a shield that would equate Britain's military prowess with that of the ancient Greeks. It was Rundell's finest achievement.

The neo-classical sculptor John Flaxman was commissioned to provide the design. He had been designing plate for the royal goldsmiths for some years already but this was by far the most ambitious undertaking for him and for the firm. In March 1810 Flaxman's wife recorded that  `our evenings are spent in making designs for the Shield of Achilles'. By October of that year the sculptor had submitted his first designs. Flaxman used the original Greek text of the Iliad, painstakingly devising groups of figures which were arranged around a central three-dimensional depiction of Apollo in his chariot of the sun. In a somewhat salacious and gossipy biography of Philip Rundell published in 1827, the anonymous author recorded:

At the period in question, Mr Flaxman was in the habit of attending regularly every evening, bearing under his arm an edition of Homer's Iliad, nearly as tall as himself, when he would read aloud to Mr [Philipp] Rundell and his partners long extracts, adding his comments, and entering into disquisitions, that, if not unintelligible, were at all events tedious to his auditors. Mr Rundell, who never professed himself a scholar, though a competent judge of refined workmanship, was under the necessity of relinquishing to his nephew, Mr [Edmond Waller] Rundell, who had pursued classical studies, Mr [Thomas] Bigge, furnished with a college education, and Mr [John] Bridge, conversant with the best authors, the earlier stages of the production under review, which was finally accomplished at the private manufactory of the firm in Dean-street, Soho. (Memoirs of the late Philip Rundell Esq, London, 1827.)

Work dragged on for several years, no doubt much to the chagrin of Philip Rundell. At the outset Flaxman had received one hundred guineas for '4 models and 6 drawings'. When the news reached them in 1814 that their rivals in nearby Ludgate Street, the firm of Green, Ward & Green, had been given a commission by the bankers and merchants of London to produce their own triumphal shield to honour the Duke of Wellington, no doubt Rundell's pressured Flaxman to complete his work. Shortly afterwards, Flaxman's wife commented that 'he has at the Desire of Messrs. Rundell recommenc'd the Model of the famous Shield upon a larger Plan'. No doubt Rundell's made sure that their shield would be the bigger. Even so, it  was not until 1817 that another payment was made to Flaxman, "on account" of £200, with a final one of £525 paid on completion the following year. (Culme p. 78)

William Theed, Rundell's chief artistic advisor and modeller, had died in 1817. As a result, Flaxman determined to model the shield himself, which he did in carved plaster. The first casts, in bronze, were made in Rundell's Dean Street workshop, formerly run by Paul Storr but at that time by Cato Sharp, and were finished by the firm's chaser, William Pitts. The first silver version was cast in the summer of 1819. In September of that year Flaxman remarked 'I have seen the cast in silver for the Shield which is indeed very successful & perfect so that little finishing seems needful to the faces of Minerva or Mars or to the other more delicate parts of the Basso relievo & consequently the less the Chaser has to do the more the metal will resemble the Model' (letters from John Flaxman to Thomas Bigge cited by Bury and Snodin p. 282)

The story of the first four shields

In a dramatic sales coup, the first silver version of the shield, gilded, was sold to the Prince Regent who displayed it at his coronation banquet in July 1821. Other orders followed: the Duke of York, the king's eldest brother and himself a passionate buyer of extravagant silver, purchased one late in 1821. The following summer another was delivered to the 3^rd Duke of Northumberland, and the following year one was invoiced to the 2^nd Earl of Lonsdale who a few years before had been in negotiations with Rundell's about commissioning a solid silver cast of the renowned Warwick Vase (not unsurprisingly negotiations had broken down over the cost).

All the silver-gilt shields have the mark of Philip Rundell: the Royal Collection example, 1821, is recorded by Jones as weighing 660 ounces; the Duke of York's, 1821, catalogued by Christie's as weighing 600 ounces, was sold after his death, Christie's, March 19, 1827, lot 67 (£1,050 to Rundell's), bought from Rundell's by the 1^st Duke of Cambridge and sold again at Christie's in the sale of the duke's silver, July 14, 1904, lot 227 (£201 5s to Wellby), acquired by the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, then by Doheny, then by Battson, sold anonymously Sotheby's, Los Angeles, April 30, 1973, lot 34 ($40,000), acquired by the Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California; the Duke of Northumberland's, 1822, 669 ounces, invoiced to him by Rundell's, July 15, 1822 for £2,100 18s, sold by his descendant the 10^th Duke of Northumberland, Sotheby's, London, May 3, 1984, lot 124 (£484,000), now in the Altajir Collection; the Earl of Lonsdale's, 1822, 661 ounces, sold by his descendant, the 6^th Earl of Lonsdale, Christie's, London, February 20, 1947, lot 136 (£520), acquired by Huttleston Broughton, 1^st Lord Fairhaven, bequeathed to the National Trust along with Anglesey Abbey in 1966 (Hartop, Royal Goldsmiths, op. cit., p. 120, n. 35).

The "lost" Cumberland Shield

The shield offered here, sent for hallmarking between May 1823 and May the following year, was the fifth silver-gilt version to be cast. It was sold to another royal duke, the fifth son of George III, Ernest Augustus Duke of Cumberland and King of Hanover. In 1984 at the sale of the Duke of  Northumberland's shield of Achilles at Sothebys it was thought that in all only four and not five were made in silver (Culme; Bury and Snodin pp. 274.) The error may have come from the ambiguity of a contemporary account of a visit to Rundell Bridge & Rundell. This was recorded by a German academic Ludwig Schorn who went in the company of John Flaxman to see the shield there in 1826. He wrote in translation: `to the silversmiths Rundell & Bridge who kept a splendid shop not far from St Paul's on Ludgate Hill. Here I was shown the shield of Achilles cast in silver and chased after a plaster model which Flaxman had executed to the King's commission....the shield has been cast four times in silver for the king, the Duke of York, the Duke of Northumberland and Lord Lonsdale. Gilded the article costs £2000, ungilded £1900' ( Exhibition catalogue, John Flaxman R.A., Royal Academy of Arts 26 October-9 December 1979, pp. 30 /31)

As these four mentioned shields were hallmarked in 1821/22 and 1822/23 and had already found buyers it seems probable that by 1826 when the visit was made, Ludwig Schorn and Flaxman were looking at the fifth shield,  the one now offered for sale and Schorn was describing what had happened hitherto. In 1911 E. Alfred Jones, The Gold and Silver of Windsor Castle, clearly stated that an example had been made for the King of Hanover. In discussing George IV's example of 1821 he says `A shield of exactly the same design and of equal size but two years later in date is in the possession of the duke of Cumberland'. Jones would have actually seen and handled the shield in Hanover as he gives thanks in the preface `... to his royal highness the duke of Cumberland I wish to signify my appreciation of the facilities accorded to me for an examination of the historic collection of plate of the kings of Hanover.'  The shield's existence therefore was unknown to scholars between 1911 and 2005 when Christopher Hartop recorded it as `whereabouts unknown'. Hartop assumed that it was sold to Cumberland around the same time as the second version was sold to the Duke of York. In fact it was sold later than the other shields, for certain during Cumberland's reign as King of Hanover (1837-1851) and most probably around 1838 as the inscription on the reverse attests. The arms also on the reverse were engraved around 1839 as they incoporate the Order of St George of Hanover instituted by Ernest Augustus in April 1839. 

The marketing potential of retaining a fifth casting of the shield for display in the Ludgate Hill premises was no doubt seen by the partners. Their shop was thronged by the fashionable, and the display of magnificence was unparalleled. In 1815 it was said that the shop `exceeded all others in the British Empire, if not the whole world, for the value of its contents'. As their greatest creation, it was their greatest advertisement. In 1826, Sir Thomas Lawrence, in his eulogy for Flaxman, referred to the shield as `that Divine Work, unequalled in the combination of beauty, variety and grandeur, which the genius of Michael Angelo could not have surpassed'. Shirley Bury and Michael Snodin surmised that Rundell's profit on the shields they sold could not have been great, given the cost of Flaxman's designs and models. But the ancilliary business the shields no doubt attracted was incalculable. In the previous century Paul Crespin and James Cox had been aware of the business potential of having extravagant creations on public display, but it was Rundell & Bridge who took the art of marketing to new heights. In that sense they were a thoroughly modern firm.

The shield and Hanover

It is known that the shield was acquired during the reign of Ernest Augustus as King of Hanover (1837-1851), and as has already been stated, most probably in 1838 when the piece was inscribed in London before leaving Rundell's premises. English Silver in the Royal Hanoverian collection hallmarked in 1838 amounted to at least 180 kilos including six, 13-light candelabra and two centrepieces from Benjamin Smith. In the same year a Paul Storr mirror plateau was altered by Rundell's workmaster William Batemen to include brackets decorated with the arms of Hanover and Great Britain (Sotheby's,  Schloss Marienburg, Works of Art from the Royal House of Hanover 5-15 October, lot 2206). There was no coronation or apparent single event to explain this influx of silver in 1838, although the year was hugely important in the establishment and consolidation of the King's power. One of the key provisions of Hanover's Constitution of 1833, current at Ernest Augustus's accession in 1837 was the `transfer of the crown domains and their revenues to the Chambers`, reducing the power and wealth of the King by replacing his revenue from ancestral possessions, with a civil list. By 1838 this had been dealt with. Ernst-August had challenged the legality of the 1833 Constitution, prorogued the chambers and held new elections under the previous 1819 Constitution. In this battle with the Liberals over the Constitution which he would not finally win until 1840, the King knew that the people in general for whom he had a deeply-held paternalistic regard were more interested in the majesty of his rule than they were in legal arguments.  `Events in the Chambers made no sensation. The people were far more impressed by the glittering court life which was now unfolding itself in the capital...Everything at court was conducted with a splendour and orderliness which soon made it one of the most distinguished in Europe' (G.M Willis, Ernest Augustus..., London, 1954, pp. 217, 308-310).

Ernest Augustus would have known the Shield of Achilles from the examples owned by his royal brothers, the King and the Duke of York. When the Duke of York died his shield was purchased at the Christie's sale of 19th March 1827 by Rundell's on behalf of yet another royal brother Adolphus Frederick Duke of Cambridge (1774-1850). The Duke of Cambridge was regent in Hanover from 1816 to 1837 and it seems probable that this York/Cambridge shield was taken to Hanover by the regent. It seems equally likely that it was then removed from Hanover when The Duke of Cambridge's regency ended on the accession of Ernest Augustus as king in 1837, leaving a significant gap to be filled in the contemporary silver available for display.

The Hanover shield of Achilles was sold most probably around 1923, a time known for disposals of Hanoverian royal plate which coincided with devastating monetary inflation in Germany and the death of Crown Prince, Ernest Augustus II on November 14 of that year.  It is not known to whom it was sold although other Royal Hanoverian plate disposed of at this time were sold through the dealers and auctioneers Samuel and Max Glückselig of Vienna and Crichton Bros. of London.