An important pair of London Regency silver gilt goblets
Round, godroned bases supporting thick, baluster-form shafts with scroll appliques. The flaring cups issuing from nodes with finely chased mascarons. The outer surfaces and the domed lids engraved with shellwork and trelliswork; the finials formed as seated putti. Both lids with the same engraved crest under a British baronial crown. H 35 cm, weight 1,291 and 1,284 g.
Marks of Paul Storr, 1832, and John Samuel Hunt, 1847.
Paul Storr is considered the most important British silversmith of the Regency era - and enjoyed extraordinary popularity in the first half of the 19th century, not only with the royal family but with the entire British aristocracy. He supplied the courts of George III and George IV, and was commissioned, among other things, to design the "Battle of the Nile Cup" with which George III awarded Admiral Nelson for his victory in the naval battle of Abukir.
Storr's works can now be found in the most prestigious collections around the world, such as the Royal Collections at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, or The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
A Paul Storr goblet identical to this pair, made in 1833, is housed in the collection of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in London, illustrated on the cover of the monograph N. M. Penzers, Paul Storr, 1771 - 1844, Silversmith and Goldsmith, London 1971.
John Samuel Hunt worked closely with Paul Storr for decades, running a joint workshop and sales premises in New Bond Street, which he continued to run after Storr's death in 1844 and passed on to his son John in 1865. The second goblet appears to be a subsequent delivery to an English Baron, which Hunt was commissioned to make after Paul Storr's death.
Provenance
Private collection, Rhineland Palatinate.