Servants held a waiter, or small salver, to hand a single glass to a dinner guest. Salvers this size were also used to carry gloves and, later, visiting cards. The maker, Paul de Lamerie, was the son of French Huguenot parents and came to London in the 1690s as a small child, before going on to become the most successful Huguenot smith in the city.
When the Catholic King Louis XIV revoked the religiously tolerant Edict of Nantes in 1685, Huguenots (French Protestants) were forced to leave the country. Many were craftsmen who settled in London. Their technical skills and fashionable French style ensured the luxury silver, furniture, watches and jewellery they made were highly sought after. Huguenot specialists transformed English silver by introducing higher standards of craftsmanship. They promoted new forms, such as the soup tureen and sauceboat, and introduced a new repertoire of ornament, with cast sculptural details and exquisite engraving.
Sir Arthur Gilbert and his wife Rosalinde formed one of the world's great decorative art collections, including silver, mosaics, enamelled portrait miniatures and gold boxes. Arthur Gilbert donated his extraordinary collection to Britain in 1996.
Physical description
The small salver, here a waiter, is shaped in a square and mounted on four feet formed from bunches of grapes. The elaborate border is created from chased scrolls, shells and vines on a punched matted ground with a narrow engraved band of circles around its innermost edge. At the centre of the waiter are the arms, probably of Ralph Congreve, engraved within a rococo cartouche.
Place of Origin
London, England (assayed)
Date
1736-1737 (hallmarked)
Artist/maker
Paul de Lamerie, born 1688 - died 1751 (probably, maker)
Materials and Techniques
Cast, chased, engraved, punched silver
Marks and inscriptions
Engraved with the arms probably of Ralph Congreve, MP.
London hallmarks for 1736-37
Mark of Paul deLamerie
Dimensions
Height: 2.7 cm, Width: 18.4 cm, Depth: 15.6 cm, Weight: 420 g
Object history note
The arms are probably intended as those of Congreve with Stawell in pretence and impaling the latter, for Ralph Congreve (d.1775) member of Parliament, who married Charlotte, daughter and heir of William, third baron Stawell of Somerton. Congreve inherited the estate of Aldermaston from his wife in 1762. The arms on the dexter side - 'Gules, a chevron between three battle axes' - have presumably been engraved in error for 'sable'. A similarly engraved salver of 1744 by the same maker is illustrated by Phillips (1935, pl. CXLIV) Another pair of waiters with the identical border, hallmarked for 1747, was in the Anson collection (see cat. no. 71, p. 276) and was sold at Christie's in 1965 (June 16, lot 30). The pair differed from this waiter only in having a flat-chased band of scrolls and leaves within the border. Another pair of 1745 is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and an enlarged version of the same design was used for a pair of salvers of the same year from the Mountrath collection (sold Sotheby's, New York, June 6, 1980, lot 27) (Schroder, 1988, p. 222).
Provenance: Ralph Congreve. Purchased from David Orgell Inc., Beverley Hills, 1981.
Historical context note
By modern convention, the term 'waiter' is generally applied to salvers less than eight inches in diameter. In the eighteenth century this was not the case, and even the largest examples were frequently referred to as waiters. The inventory of plate compi
Descriptive line
Silver, London hallmarks for 1736-37, mark of Paul de Lamerie
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Schroder, Timothy. The Gilbert collection of gold and silver. Los Angeles (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) 1988, cat. no. 55, pp. 222-23. ISBN.0875871445.
Labels and date
Waiter
1736–7
Servants held a waiter, or small salver, to hand a single glass to a dinner guest. Salvers this size were also used to carry gloves and, later, visiting cards.
London, England; probably Paul de Lamerie (1688–1751)
Silver
Engraved with arms probably of Ralph Congreve, MP
(died 1775)
Museum no. Loan:Gilbert.983-2008 [2009]
Materials
Silver
Techniques
Engraving (incising); Casting; Chasing; Punching
Subjects depicted
Grapes; Coat of arms; Vine leaves
Categories
Metalwork
Collection code
MET
