An Important Pair of Royal George III Wine Coolers

An Important Pair of Royal George III Wine Coolers.

Silver-gilt.
London, 1801.
Maker’s mark of Joseph Preedy.

Each wine cooler heavily cast and chased with fluted and laurel bases. The bodies with acanthus-decorated lower bodies below friezes of Bacchanals, openwork grapevine garlands and the rim linking rams' head handles.

Each with detachable fluted collars and liners. The bases engraved with the Royal garter below a Royal Ducal coronet for Ernest Augustus the Duke of Cumberland, later the King of Hanover.

The figures of Bacchus and Silenus as being taken from Bernard de Montfaucon's L'Antiquité Expliquée and Representée en Figures (Paris, 1719/24), while the small putti are drawn from the designs of Lady Elizabeth Templetown, an amateur artist who supplied designs to Wedgwood and Bentley, and the dancing figure with a tambourine from one of the Marlborough Gems, published in 1788.

Joseph Preedy

Son of the Rev. Benjamin Preedy of St. Albans in the County of Hertford clerk, apprenticed to Thomas Whipham 2 October 1765 and turned over 9 June 1766 to William Plummer of Gutter Lane goldsmith, Citizen and Clothworker on consideration of £21. Free, 4 August 1773 as plateworker. First mark entered as plateworker, 3 February 1777. Address: Westmoreland Buildings, Aldersgate Street. Second mark, in partnership with William Pitts, 11 January 1791. Address: Litchfield Street, St. Ann's, 3 August 1795. The partnership was apparently dissolved by 21 December 1799 when Pitts entered a single mark. Third mark alone, 20 January 1800. Address: 8 Great Newport Street. Heal records all the above addresses and dates, and also Preedy alone in Litchfield Street in 1791, the year of the commencement of the partnership with Pitts.

Dimensions

Price on application

This object is eligible for a Certificate of BADA Provenance