A Queen Anne Britannia standard silver-gilt ewer, Pierre Platel, London, 1702

helmet-shaped, applied reeded girdle below lip centred by leafage, engraved with the arms of Gorges above palmette straps on a matted ground, leaf-capped harp-shaped handle, knopped stem, spreading gadrooned foot, engraved with scratch weight 44=6

Henry Gorges of Eye and Mynde, Herefordshire (1665-1712)
Archibald, 5th Earl of Rosebery, purchased from Garrard & Co., 24 December 1878, for £130
sold Sotheby's, London, 11 February 1999, lot 26

R. & S. Garrard & Co., Goldsmith to the Crown, Inventory of the Mentmore and London Plate belonging to The Right Hon.ble the Earl of Rosebery, 1879, p. 113, 1 antique helmet shaped Ewer.

some light wear to gilding at highlights, marks clear, the rim with a 1/2 in. scratch, the body with a scratch and subsequent loss to gilding, engraving crisp, and in ovrall very good condition.
"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."

This ewer forms part of an order of gilt plate which epitomises the superb quality of the best English silver made during the reign of Queen Anne. The order was fulfilled by a number of Huguenot goldsmiths in collaboration with Platel, including David Willaume I and Nicolaus Clausen, for a member of the Gorges family whose arms are engraved on each piece. The plate was acquired by Garrard & Co who sold it on Christmas Eve 1878 to the future Prime minister Lord Rosebery, who had married Hannah Rothschild in the same year. It was then sold at Sothebys on 11 February 1999, Magnificent silver-gilt Objects of Vertu and Miniatures From the Rothschild and Rosebery Collection, Mentmore, lots 22-26, and included four footed circular salvers, four hexagonal salvers, a set of three casters and a pair of two-handled cups and covers as well as this ewer. A silver-gilt coffee pot with the same armorials, by Nicolaus Clausen, was offered Christies, London, 12 June 2007, lot 95.

The identification of the arms is difficult due not only to the many descendants of Sir Tibbot Gorges alias  Russell (d. 1380) living at the beginning of the eighteenth century who could have borne these arms, but also because there is no impalment of a wife's arms to help focus the search. The arms as they are engraved on the Gorges plate are: quarterly, 1 and 4: Gorges (ancient), 2: Gorges (modern), and 3: Russell.

One candidate appears to be Henry Gorges of Eye and The Mynde, Herefordshire (c. 1665–1718). His father Ferdinando Gorges whom he succeeded in 1701 had made a fortune in the West Indies and spectacularly enriched Eye Manor with baroque plasterwork in the height of Dutch fashion. These ceilings at Eye can be compared with the work of George Dunsterfield and John Halbert, `English plasterers' who between 1674 and 1679 furnished similar elaborate ceilings for Hollyrood Palace in Edinburgh.

Henry Gorges was M.P. for Herefordshire in 1698 and later for Weobley and Leominster. He married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Robert Pye of The Mynde, who died in 1710. In Gorges's will dated March 12, 1717 (and proved on December 1, 1719) he leaves to his second wife Dorothy "all my plate linen household goods furniture and utensils ... in my house in Devonshire Street, St Andrewes Holborne And also such pieces of plate att my house att Eye ... as she shall choose not exceeding £100. To my daughter Meliora £4000 and £80 a year ... my pearl necklace and one of my best silver cupps and covers with such salver as she shall choose for it to stand on ... To my youngest daughter Mary £3000 and £60 a year and my diamond ring with her mother's hair and a silver cup and cover the fellow to that herein before given to her sister Meliora with such salver to sett the same on as after her sisters choices as aforesaid she shall choose ... the remaining plate to my eldest son Robert barring the large tankard to my executor for his trouble"¹.  Meliora, who died unmarried aged 43 left her cup, cover and salver to her sister's daughter. Robert Gorges was sixteen at the time of his father's death and died, unmarried, in 1727 when he was succeeded by his brother Richard who died in 1749. Richard's monument in Eye Church is carved with the Gorges arms with the same quarterings as on the Gorges plate².

Perhaps a more likely candidate, however, for the original owner of the Gorges plate however is Lieutenant-General Richard Gorges (1662–1728) who had a long and distinguished career in the Army, serving in Flanders under William III and in Ireland. He was appointed Adjutant-General of His Majesty's forces in Ireland and was quartermaster-general at Cork in 1702. The following year he was commissioned to raise a regiment for foreign service, known as "Colonel Richard Gorges's regiment", which he took to Spain where he was in command of the forces investing Alicante. In 1704, in his forty-third year, he married the widow of Sir Tristram Beresford. She died in 1714 and three years later he married Dorothea, widow of Edward, 4^th Earl of Meath. According to Dean Swift, she brought Gorges a jointure of £1,200 a year and £6,200 in Bank of England stock. She died in April 1728, and Richard Gorges followed her two days later. In a codicil to his will, dated April 11, 1728, he ordered "the use of all my Plate to my dear daughter Dorothy Gorges alias Cuffe for and during the term of her natural Life and from and after her decease to my Executors ... on Trust if my said daughter shall leave one or more Child or Children..." ³. Dorothy's husband John Cuffe was created Lord Desart in 1733.

The Goldsmith Pierre Platel, a resident of Lille, to whom Paul de Lamerie was apprenticed in 1703, came to England in 1688 'in the train of William III', a connection maintained through the patronage of figures close to the king such Hans William Bentinck and William Cavendish  (Earl and Duke of Portland and Devonshire). His place of work was 'over against the Duke of Schomberg's', a title born by two senior courtiers Friedrich Schomberg and his son Meinhardt.  The former, leader of the Huguenot community in Berlin, died in King William's service at the Battle of the Boyne and Meinhardt, also fought in Ireland and was created first Duke of Leinster in 1691. The presence in Ireland of such grandees, whose taste was for plate in the Huguenot style exemplified by this ewer, must account for an almost identical ewer, by the Dublin goldsmith Thomas Bolton in the same year 1702. This is engraved with the royal arms and forms part of a suite of plate made for the Duke of Ormonde as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland⁴. If the Gorges ewer now offered for sale was indeed made for General Gorges while he was serving in Ireland, it may well have been the model for Bolton's ewer.

The Gorges plate is characterized by the extremely high quality of the engraving. The use of berried foliage, fishscale and husks is typical of the work of Blaise Gentot, a French immigrant engraver who worked in London for a time, but the distinctive circular composition of the armorials on this ewer and the other Gorges pieces is perhaps closest to armorial engraving done for the Jewel House by John Rollos, one of the Huguenot family of goldsmiths, die cutters and engravers. Interestingly, though, one of General Richard Gorges's trustees mentioned in the codicil cited above was Benjamin Hoare, Banker, of Fleet Street who employed Benjamin Rhodes as engraver.

 

¹ National Archives [PRO]/PROB11/568/97.

² Raymond Gorges, History of the Family of Gorges, Boston, 1944, p. 205.

³ National Archives [PRO]/PROB/11/622.

⁴ Sotheby's, London, 19 June 1969, lot 240 and again Sotheby's,London, 17 November 1988, lot 69; also illustrated in V. Brett, The Sotheby's Directory of Silver 1600-1940, London, 1985, no. 592.