Took quick snaps at the shop so this is the best I could do. Fell in love with this fish server, I think London 1802. Wondering if this type of decoration would have been added later? The price is pretty premium so I don’t really want to pay top dollar for something with later embellishment but jeez it’s pretty. Thoughts? Thanks in advance
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It can be fiendishly difficult to tell. Some Georgian pieces have nice clean lines, with only modest adornment, but the rococo goes well back into the 18th Century, so you often see fairly early pieces with a lot of elaborate decoration.
Occasionally, it’s easy to tell. Someone in the U.S. was auctioning what clearly started life as a nice, straightforward George III quart tankard. But it had been covered with all manner of repoussé frippery. Worst of all, someone had added a spout to it, so it became some sort of pot or jug, rather than a drinking vessel. No new hallmarks dating it to the mid-Victorian, so in the U.K., selling that would be a crime, literally.
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This fiddle and thread fish slice is almost certainly half of a box set. Looking at it have you any reason to suppose the chasing isn’t contemporary? At auction single slicers without a fork go for US$150-$185. Pairs start at $US500.00. (See www.liveauctioneers.com)
Can you remember who the maker was? Is it WB for William Bennett? Difficult to read on the picture. Bennett was working from 19 Little Bartholomew Close in 1802. His shop specialized in trays and salvers so employed excellent decorators.
CRWW
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Thanks Bart, that was my guess too, and thanks Jeff. And I didn’t have my loupe with me Mr Wilson so couldn’t read the maker. I think the grouse in the centre struck me as more early Victorian, but I’m encouraged that you don’t see it as anachronistic. It’s a little overpriced but I do like it.
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I had sort of presumed your grouse was a pheasant but you may be right. Grouse were limited to Scotland, season opening Aug 12th. Pheasant season kicks off October 1st and runs through Christmas. Georgians shot both with fowling pieces. Highly refined, long-barrelled, smoothbore weapons used by the aristocracy specifically for bird hunting.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/364770071109
But why put game birds on a fish slice? I can only presume it was made for someone who had both shooting and a good trout or salmon stream on his property which does rather point back to Scotland making your grouse nomenclature more likely.
CRWW
Maybe it’s a grouse server? They are smaller than a decent sized brook trout.
Publish and be damned! I might have to buy it, it’s just too charming.
Would you like an 18th century fowling piece to go with your grouse server?
It’s a smooth-bored, muzzle-loaded, flint and pan fired weapon. I have three of them locked away in the gun room in Shropshire. They are relics of the local shoot when it was started in about 1760. An American friend of mine, a gun enthusiast visiting, insisted on testing one of them with some black powder a paper plug and a light load of modern shot. The thing worked but the ricochet knocked him backwards and his enthusiasm for testing the other three diminished somewhat.
I’m afraid I don’t have a picture with me over here but there’s several listed for sale various places on the web.
One of them was modified to serve as a military weapon during some slight contretemps with the French. My father used it in the Home Guard ( Dad’s Army) in the last war to deter Germans. Apparently it worked as none arrived.
CRWW