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Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level D , Case MB8R, Shelf SH6

Metalwork Design
1815-1825, 1811-1831 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Verso of a page from Thomas Chippendale’s ‘The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker Director” on which is drawn a design for a gold cup.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Title
Materials and techniques
Brief description
Page in an album containing designs for goldsmiths’ work and jewellery 1815-1825
Physical description
Verso of a page from Thomas Chippendale’s ‘The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker Director” on which is drawn a design for a gold cup.
Dimensions
  • Height: 283mm
  • Width: 445mm
Gallery label
Object history
This is a page in an album (E 1-80.1972) made up using 41 disbound leaves from Thomas Chippendale’s ‘The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker Director” with dates on the plates from 1759 to 1761 in a modern half brown calf binding, labelled “Jewellery Designs”.
Drawn on the leaves and pasted onto them are designs for goldsmiths’ work and jewellery by various hands. The drawings are mainly on the reverse of the leaves. The leaves are numbered in ink 14 to 118 (78 sheets missing). The highest Chippendale plate number is 200. The 1762 edition of Chippendale contained 212 plates.
The contents of the album show that it is associated with the workshop of the goldsmith and jeweller James Aldridge. He registered his mark at the Goldsmiths’ Hall in 1798. By 1817 he is recorded in Johnston’s Commercial Guide as a goldsmith and jeweller living at 11 Northumberland Court, Strand. E.25 and E.29.1972 carry the erased signature of James Aldridge. An impression of a medal on E.17-1972 shows his maker mark. Aldridge is known to have been a leading maker of metalwork for William Beckford.
Circa 1815- 1825
Bought from Messer B.H. Blackwell ltd, Oxford, for £95.44.

Drawn on the blank side of the sheet: drawing of a gold cup, profile, full size 146 x 77. A small covered cup of bombée form with scrolling diamonds on the body. In the Neo Rococo style. Beside the cup, a drawing of a diamond- set scroll. Pencil, pen and ink and wash. Inscribed by the finial ‘Gold and Diamond Cup, Wt 7 oz’
Probably by J. Aldridge, c. 1820.
Bibliographic reference
M. Snodin, M. Baker, ‘William Beckford’s Silver I-II’, The Burlington Magazine, November and December 1980, pp. 734- 748, 820- 834. M. Snodin, William Beckford and metalwork in ‘William Beckford, 1760-1844 : an eye for the magnificent’, Derek Ostergard, Yale University Press, 2001
Collection
Accession number
E.73-1972

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Record createdJune 30, 2009
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