A pair of George III silver salvers, Paul Storr, for Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, London, 1815

Henry Fraser Walter (1822-1893), Papplewick Hall, Nottinghamshire;

Mrs. Filomena ‘Fay’ Plohn (1924-2009), New York;

Sotheby's, London, 15 October 1970, lot 64;

Lillian (1905-1985) and Morrie Moss (1907-1993), Memphis, TN;

Sotheby’s, London, 23 October 2006, lot 169;

Christie’s, New York, 19 October 2010, lot 91;

with Koopman Rare Art, London, 2012;

Sold Sotheby's, Paris, Hôtel Lambert, Une Collection Princière, 14 October 2022, lot 892.

Morrie A. Moss, Lillian and Morrie Moss Collection of Paul Storr Silver, 1972, pp. 252-253, pl. 188.

The arms are those of Walter impaling Dawson for Henry Fraser Walter (baptised, St. Ann, Blackfriars, London, 15 May 1822 – died, Papplewick, Nottinghamshire, 18 November 1893). He was the second son of John Walter (23 February 1776 - 28 July 1847), editor of The Times, and his wife, Mary (née Smith, 1793-1875). His paternal grandfather, John Walter (1 January 1738 – 17 November 1812) founded The Times, which was launched on 1 January 1785 as The Daily Universal Register. H.F. Walter’s elder brother, John Walter (8 October 1818 – 3 November 1894), became sole manager of The Times upon their father’s death.

Henry Fraser Walter was married at St. Pancras, Middlesex on 9 July 1846 to Isabella Catherine (1824-1887), daughter of John Dawson. Walter was sometime a partner in Delane, Magnay & Co., paper manufacturers of Tavernham, Norfolk. At his death his estate was valued at a little over £78,000.

‘The Nottinghamshire papers give long obituary notices of Mr. Henry Fraser Walter, one of the proprietors of the “Times,” who has died at Papplewick Hall. Mr. Walter was second son of Mr. John Walter and a grandson of the founder of that paper, being born in 1822 at the Times House, Printing House-square. In his early life he was a great traveller and sportsman, visiting the greater part of Europe and America, and performing some remarkable feats with the gun. On settling down in this country he joined Mr. F. Magnay and Mr. William Delane, brother of the former well-known editor of the “Times” [John Thaddeus Delane (1817-1879)], in starting a paper mill at Norwich. But he afterwards abandoned active interest in it in favour of his son, and continued to travel frequently; one of his exploits being to go to the Crimea during the war. On the downfall of Sebastopol he was one of the first to enter that stronghold with the victorious allied forces.’ (The Globe, London, Tuesday, 21 November 1893, p. 4d)

A finely decorated gilt-brass eight-day desk chronometer by James McCabe of the Royal Exchange, London, circa 1856, engraved with the arms and monogram of Henry Fraser Walter was sold in the Treasures sale, Sotheby’s, London, 5 July 2022, lot 24.

When sold in Mrs. Plohn’s sale at Sotheby’s, London, in 1970, this pair of salvers was accompanied by a matching, large rectangular salver. The decoration on all three salvers is almost identical to that of a Paul de Lamerie example, London, 1734, in the Farrer Collection, illustrated in Timothy Schroder, British and Continental Gold and Silver in the Ashmolean Museum, 2009, vol. I, no. 101, pp. 274-276. This similarity suggests that the Farrer salver may have been part of the stock of antique silver at Rundell, Bridge & Rundell whose manufacturing silver department was managed by Paul Storr between 1808 and 1819.