A George III silver basket, maker's mark badly struck, probably Vere & Lutwyche, London, 1765

shaped oval, the openwork sides of vertical staves applied with a profusion of cast flowers, foliage, wheat and bunches of grapes, two flies, a snail and a caterpillar, swing handle, the centre later engraved with a crest and baron's coronet

Garrard & Company Ltd., The Marchioness of Crewe, Inventory of Plate at 50 Charles Street, 20 December 1950, p.3.

a good heavy weight, much heavier than most baskets of this pattern; the marks are good although the maker's mark has been badly struck and the only letters visible are W and V; the base slightly pushed in
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The crest and coronet are those of Milnes, Barons Houghton of Great Houghton, Yorkshire, probably for Richard Monckton Milnes (1809-1885), who was M.P. for Pontefract from 1837 to 1863. He was elevated to the peerage as Baron Houghton on 20 August 1863, having married in 1851 Annabella Hungerford (1814-1874), daughter of John Crewe, 2nd Baron Crewe. Their only son, Robert, succeeded to the Crewe estates upon the death in 1893 of his maternal uncle, the 3rd and last Baron Crewe.