A George II silver salver, William Grundy, London, 1751

shaped circular, the centre engraved with a coat-of-arms within an elaborate floral and foliate rococo cartouche of Chinese architectural forms inhabited by a single seated and two standing figures, further details include a bird in a tree, a floating swan, a duck and a gondola, the applied richly cast, chased and pierced border of fruiting vines enclosing masks of Bacchus and companion, with shells, snails and caterpillars at intervals, on four massive paw supports each terminating in a lion mask and bunch of grapes

Hilary Young, 'The silver designs of Sir William Chambers: a resumé and recent discoveries,' The Silver Society Journal, Autumn 1995, pp. 335-341

The arms are those of Willson (or Wilson) with Wingfield in pretence, probably for Captain George Willson, who married Jane Wingfield at St. Mary Woolnoth, London, on 20 November 1760. Willson, captain of the Calcutta Indiaman from 1758 to 1759, later became the vessel's Principal Managing Owner.

The East India Company's hard-won supremacy over the whole of the Indian sub-continent, for many years challenged by French and Dutch forces, was settled in an action against the French under the Comte de Lally at Wandewash on 22 January 1760. On the English side Captain (later Sir) Eyre Coote (1726-1783) fought with a comparatively small army and returned in triumph to England in 1762, where he was voted by the Company a 'Sword enrich'd with Diamonds' to be supplied by the King's jewellers, John & Peter Duval of Warnford Court, at a cost of £747. Several other, less valuable gifts were distributed by the Company at about the same time to the masters of several vessels which had been engaged in actions in the late 1750s in the rivers Bengal and Ganges. One was Captain William Webber of the Oxford, who was presented with a silver cup and cover (William Cripps, London, 1762), and another was Captain George Willson of the Calcutta, the probable owner of the salver in this lot, who received a 'Neat Chased Epergne.' For further details and references, including to East India Company papers in the India Office Library, see Sotheby's, London, 24 October 1985, lot 408 and footnote; also, Oliver Goldsmith, History Of England, from the Earliest Times to the Death of George the Second, London, 1823, ch. VIII.

The engraving on this salver is a particularly fine example of its kind on English silver. It incorporates a number of features, including standing figures in niches, fragments of architecture, a pagoda inhabited by a seated Buddha, and the waters of a lake upon which float a swan, a duck and a pleasure boat. All of these and several other details appear to have been adapted from some of the plates in The Ladies Amusement; or, Whole Art of Japanning Made Easy, which was published in at least two editions by Robert Sayer of Fleet Street, London, between about 1758 and 1762 (one of which was reprinted in facsimile in 1966). The title page to this publication acknowledges 'Pillement and other Masters' as the originators of the designs. This refers to the painter and designer, Jean-Baptiste Pillement (1728-1808) of Lyon, whose work is characterised by exotic flowers, animals, birds and chinoiseries which inspired a generation of engravers and chasers of silver, decorators of ceramics, and designers of textiles and wallpapers.

Hilary Young draws attention to an account and memorandum book in the National Art Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum which bears the name of George Coyte. This was probably the goldsmith of that name who succeeded to the business of William Cripps of The Golden Ball, St. James's Street, who died in December 1765. The book contains a large number of pulls from engraved plate, one of which matches the engraving on this salver. The inescapable conclusion is that some connection existed between Cripps and Grundy, a suggestion which seems to be confirmed by the existence of a pair of Cripps salvers of 1748 with identical cast borders to the present example (Christie's, London, 27 March 1968, lot 172). It may also be that Cripps and Grundy employed the services of the same engraver; compare the present cartouche with that in similar style on a Cripps salver of 1754 which encloses the arms of Mawbey with Pratt in pretence for Joseph Mawbey of Botleys, Surrey, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph Pratt of Vauxhall in 1760 (Sotheby's, London, 18 July 1968, lot 222).