A Magnificent Pair of Victorian Marine Table Centre Dessert Bowls
Silver, wood & ivory
London, 1838-1848
Maker's mark of Paul Storr and John Samuel Hunt for Storr & Mortimer,
Width: 35.5cm., 14in.
Each engraved with the crest of Tollemarche for John Jervis Tollemache, 1st Baron Tollemache.

Provenance: The Tollemache Estate, Peckforton Castle, Cheshire, Chritie's London, 13 May 1953, lot 45 Bulgari Rome Private Collection The shaped oval marine bases cast and chased with shells, rockwork and spume and each supporting a crested clam pulled by a conch-blowing triton, the clams, John Samuel Hunt, London, 1848, the arm of one of the merman engraved 'No. 831 Published as the Act Directs by Storr & Mortimer, 156, New Bond Street, London, October 17th, 1838', one numbered 2, the other numbered 4, the wood undersides each with four ivory ball and cartouche rollers

Peckforton Castle was built between 1844 and 1850 for John Tollemache, the largest landowner in Cheshire at the time, who was described by William Ewart Gladstone as "the greatest estate manager of his day".Tollemache's first choice of architect was George Latham of Nantwich, but he was not appointed, and was paid £2,000 (£180 thousand today) in compensation. Instead Tollemache appointed Anthony Salvin, who had a greater reputation and more experience, and who had already carried out work on the Tollemache manor house, Helmingham Hall in Suffolk. The castle was built by Dean and Son of Leftwich, with Joseph Cookson of Tarporley acting as clerk of works. Stone was obtained from a quarry about 1 mile (2 km) to the west of the site, and a railway was built to carry the stone. The castle cost £60,000 (about £5.8 million as of 2016).
Although it was built as a family home its design was that of a medieval castle. It has a gatehouse, a portcullis, a dry moat, external windows that are little more than arrow slots, and large towers. In 1851 The Illustrated London News said that it "seems to exhibit the peculiar beauties of Carnarvon Castle without its inconveniences" and in 1858 Sir George Gilbert Scott called it "the largest and most carefully and learnedly executed Gothic mansion of the present" and that it was "the very height of masquerading". It is regarded as "the last serious fortified home built in England" and "it was executed to the highest standards and is one of the great buildings of its age".

John Jervis Tollemache, 1st Baron Tollemache (5th December 1805 – 9th December 1890), was a British Conservative Member of Parliament and a major landowner and estate manager in Cheshire, becoming Baron Tollemache of Helmingham Hall in Suffolk. Born John Jervis Halliday, he was the son of Admiral John Richard Delap Halliday (who in 1821 assumed by Royal licence the surname and arms of Tollemache in lieu of Halliday), eldest son of Lady Jane Halliday, youngest daughter and co-heir of Lionel Tollemache, 4th Earl of Dysart. His mother was Lady Elizabeth Stratford, daughter of John Stratford, 3rd Earl of Aldborough.
Little is known of his education and it is thought that he received a private education which did not lead to university. He inherited considerable wealth, including Helmingham Hall in Suffolk and estates in Northamptonshire, Cheshire and Ireland.
Tollemache served as High Sheriff of Cheshire for 1840 and was then elected to the House of Commons as MP for Cheshire South from 1841 to 1868, and Cheshire West from 1868 to 1872. In 1876 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Tollemache, of Helmingham Hall in the county of Suffolk.
Lord Tollemache married Georgina Louisa Best, daughter of Thomas Best, in 1826; they had five children together. After her death in 1846, he married Eliza Georgiana Duff, daughter of Sir James Duff, in 1850; they had nine children together.
Lord Tollemache died in December 1890, aged 85, and was succeeded in the barony by his eldest son from his first marriage, Wilbraham Frederic Tollemache. The eldest son from his second marriage, the Hon. John. R. D. Tollemache, married Eleanor Starnes, the daughter of Hon. Henry Starnes and his wife, Eleanor Stuart.
Lady Tollemache, who was 24 years younger than her husband, died in 1918.
Artist Biography:
Son of Thomas Storr of Westminster, first silver-chaser later innkeeper, born 1771. Apprenticed c'1785. Before his first partnership with William Frisbee in 1792 he worked at Church Street, Soho, which was the address of Andrew Fogelberg, This is also the address at which Storr's first separate mark is also entered. First mark entered as plateworker, in partnership with William Frisbee, 2 May 1792. Address: 5 Cock Lane, Snow Hill. Second mark alone, 12 January 1793. Address: 30 Church Street, Soho. Third mark, 27 April 1793. Fourth 8 August 1794. Moved to 20 Air Street, 8 October 1796, (where Thomas Pitts had worked till 1793). Fifth mark, 29 November 1799. Sixth, 21 August 1807. Address 53 Dean Street, Soho. Seventh, 10 February 1808. Ninth, 21 October 1813. Tenth, 12 September 1817. Moved to Harrison Street, Gray's Inn Road, 4 March 1819, after severing his connection with Rundell, Bridge and Rundell. Eleventh mark, 2 September 1883. Address: 17 Harrison Street. Twelfth and last mark, 2 September 1833. Heal records him in partnership with Frisbee and alone at Cock Lane in 1792, and at the other addresses and dates above, except Harrison Street. Storr married in 1801, Elizabeth Susanna Beyer of the Saxon family of piano and organ builders of Compton Street, by whom he had ten children. He retired in 1838, to live in Hill House in Tooting. He died 18 March 1844 and is buried in Tooting Churchyard. His will, proved 3 April 1844, shows an estate of £3000. A memorial to him in Otely Church, Suffolk was put up by his son Francis the then incumbent of the parish. For full details of Storr's relationship with Rundell, Bridge and Rundell please see N.M. Penzer, 1954 or Royal Goldsmiths, The Art of Rundell and Bridge, 2005.

Storr's reputation rests on his mastery of the grandoise neo-Classical style developed in the Regency period. His early pieces up to about 1800 show restrained taste, although by 1797 he had produced the remarkable gold font for the Duke of Portland. Here, however the modelling of the classical figures must presumably have been the work of a professional sculptor, as yet unidentified, and many of the pieces produced by him for Rundell and Bridge in the Royal Collection must have sprung from designs commissioned by that firm rather than from his own invention. On the other hand they still existed in his Harrison Street workshop, until destroyed in World War II, a group of Piranesi engravings of classical vases and monuments bearing his signature, presumably used as source material for designs. The massiveness of the best of his compositions is well shown in the fine urn of 1800 at Woborn Abbey, but the Theocritus Cup in the Royal Collection must be essentially ascribed to the restraint of its designer John Flaxman, while not denying to Storr its superb execution. Lord Spencer's ice pails of 1817 show similar quality. Not all Storr's work however wasof classical inspiration. The candelabra of 1807 at Woburn derive from candlesticks by Paul Crespin of the George II period, formerly part of the Bedford Collection, and he attempted essays in floral rococo design from time to time, which tend to over-floridity. On occasions the excellence of his technical qualities was marred by a lack of good proportions, as in the chalices of the church plate of St Pancras, 1821. In spite of these small lapses there is no doubt that Storr rose to the demands made upon him as the author of more fine display plate than any other English goldsmith, including Paul De Lamerie, was ever called upon to produce.