An Incredible Pair of Victorian Figural Vases.
Silver
London, 1849
Maker's mark of Hunt and Roskell
Stamped with the retailers mark of HUNT & ROSKELL, LATE STORR & MORTIMER.
The cast rocky triangular bases each with four tritons, the bowls formed as overlapping water lily pads embellished with buds and blooms, the figures Paul Storr, London, circa 1838, each figure engraved on the right arm: 'Published as the Act directs by Storr & Mortimer 156 New Bond Street London Octr. 17 1838' and each right hand engraved: 'No. 130,' the bases stamped: 'HUNT & ROSKELL LATE STORR, MORTIMER & HUNT 4158'
38.8cm., 15 1/4 in. high
11,983gr., 385oz. 5dwt.

Provenance: Sotheby's, New York, 27 April 1992, lot 256;
Private Collection

Artist Biography:
The bowls of these vases are of the same lily pad design as those of a pair of wine coolers made at Hunt & Roskell in 1848 for presentation to Edward, 1st Earl of Ellenborough (1790-1871). Instead of tritons, their bases supported figures illustrative of life in India in commemoration of the Earl’s tenure as Governor-General there between 1842 and 1844. The coolers were part of a service which Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were shown at Hunt & Roskell in February 1848, for which they ‘were graciously pleased to express their high admiration.’ (The Morning Chronicle, London, 16 February 1848, p. 6d)
Although Hunt & Roskell employed the services of several artists at this time, including Frank Howard (1805-1866) and Alfred Brown, both of whom began their association with the firm in the mid 1840s, they worked under the superintendence of the sculptor Edward Hodges Baily (1788-1867). It is he to whom the design of these and the Ellenborough coolers has been attributed. The concept was not new, however; a book of miscellaneous prints of designs for vases inscribed ‘No. 202 Storr & Mortimer 13 New Bond Street,’ which must have been known to Baily, includes an engraving after Jacques-François Saly (1717-1776) in which a shell-like vase is supported by tritons. In 1841 Mortimer & Hunt , Hunt & Roskell’s predecessors, produced a very similar caviar pail for the Russian Prince Worontsov-Dashkov (Sotheby’s, London, 3 July 1969, lot 249; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Joan B. Lappe-Bowman Bequest). These naturalistic forms, so brilliantly adapted for silver at Hunt & Roskell during the 1840s, probably found their most extreme expression in the shell and coral pattern tea and coffee set, London, 1849, which they showed at the Great Exhibition of 1851 (John Culme, Nineteenth-Century Silver, London, 1977, pp. 158 and 159)
E.H. Baily began working under John Flaxman for Rundell, Bridge & Rundell while still a student and when Flaxman died in 1826 he became Rundell’s chief designer and modeller. In this post he inevitably worked most closely with Paul Storr, who until February 1819 was in charge of the firm’s silver manufactory in Dean Street, Soho. Storr subsequently set up his own factory in addition to going into partnership two years later with John Mortimer to form the retail business of Storr & Mortimer, goldsmiths and jewellers, in Bond Street. Baily joined the new firm and continued to work with Storr and his successors until 1857.