Lot 64
A pair of George IV wine coolers
£23,750
Auction: Day One: 07 December 2021 | From 10:00
Description
William Brown, London 1824, of tapering form, ribbed bandings, engraved with Garter and crest with a ducal coronet, plain handles, wire inner frame, removable rim
Dimensions
Footnote
Heraldry
The Crest of The Rt Hon William Lowther KG, the 1st Earl of Lonsdale
A dragon passant argent
The crest is environed with the Garter with its motto: ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’ [Shame on him who thinks evil of it]. The whole is ensigned with an Earl’s coronet.
Note:
Sir William Lowther (born 29th December 1757 died 19th March 1844), the 1st Earl of Lonsdale and 2nd Baronet of Little Preston and Swillington in the County of Yorkshire, served as Member of Parliament for Appleby in 1780, for Carlisle from 1780 to 1784 and for Cumberland from 1784 to 1790. In 1796, he returned as Member of Parliament for Rutland, holding the seat until 1802 when he resigned his seat in the House of Commons on succeeding his cousin as Viscount Lowther as a peer in the House of Lords.
William served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the army as well as being the Lord Lieutenant of Cumberland and Westmorland and Recorder of Carlisle. Having been appointed a Knight of the Garter and created Earl of Lowther in 1807, he set about an extensive redesign of the family estate, rebuilding Lowther Caste with the architect Robert Smirke between 1806 and 1814. An industrialist and coal magnate, Lowther was a man of vast means, allowing him to indulge his interests in the arts and he served as patron to many artists and writers, including William Wordsworth.
He was well known for his extravagant purchases, Robert Smirk reported in his diary that he was believed to have a yearly income of £100,000; close to the equivalent of £10 million today. The craft of the silversmith did not escape his notice and following his inheritance of the title in 1807, he set about commissioning a large gilt service from silversmiths Paul Storr, Digby Scott and Benjamin Smith, much of which was later sold in 1947, following the closure of the Castle in 1937 due to the depletion of the family fortune by the 5th Earl's more profligate tendencies.
Many pieces from the original collection still surface at auction today, such as a set of four silver-gilt salts from the Lonsdale Service, by (not marked) Digby Scott and Benjamin Smith (II), 1803 and retailed by Rundell, Bridge and Rundell (Sotheby’s New York, 16th April, 2013, lot 407), typical of the early 19th century Egyptian Revival style, and exude the luxury of the Regency period.
Although regarded as a top tier client of the Royal goldsmiths, Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, the size of the Earl’s commissions presumably meant that even they had to outsource work to meet the demands placed upon their workshops. These vast commissions often lasted over many years and it is possible these wine coolers were either outsourced to William Brown and part of the original commission or possibly ordered to increase the size of the already huge service.
