Image of Gallery in South Kensington
Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level C , Case M, Shelf 35

Metalwork Design

1785-1790
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

A drawing of a silver vase, probably for a condiment. Profile, full size, 164 x 115 mm.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Pen and ink and grey wash on laid paper
Brief description
A design for a silver vase, probably for a condiment, by an anonymous draughtsman, c. 1785-90
Physical description
A drawing of a silver vase, probably for a condiment. Profile, full size, 164 x 115 mm.
Dimensions
  • Height: 212mm
  • Width: 183mm
Style
Object history
On the sheet is a design for a vase. The vase has suspended ring handles and an acorn and oak leaf knop. The design of the vase is very similar to the vases in 8389:16 but it is larger and may be for sugar. This is a presentation drawing by the hand signing RM (see 8389:3). This drawing was bought from the dealer Robert Jackson on the 7th of January 1879 £0- 3- 0. This is one of a group of drawings acquired from the dealer R. Jackson between 1878 and 1883. They are nearly all carried out in pen and ink and grey wash and represent silver, which is of dates from c. 1780 to 1795. They are very largely by one hand, identified by the script initials RM which may be a signature.
The RM hand is fairly skilled, but poor on perspective, and its pen and grey wash technique is not unlike that of contemporary architectural draughtsmen. Most of the drawings certainly or probably represent silver made in the workshops of the leading London firms of John Scofield, Daniel Smith and Robert Sharp, Thomas Pitts and William Pitts. The drawings fall into two types: small sketches often in perspective and with descriptive notes, and full size profiles, and one perspective.
The former group are patterns for showing or sending to customers. The larger type, with the exception of 8389.5 and 8389.6, which are not by RM, can also be described as patterns or preliminary drawings for them, because in one case (8389.16) they are mixed with the smaller type, but also because several (8389.2, 8389.1) bear appropriate inscriptions. Their very high finish, clean state, illusionistic shading and unnecessary repetition of details also point to this conclusion.
8389.18 shows a condiment service with pieces similar to those by both John Scofield and Daniel Smith and Robert Sharp.
Hilary Young, in discussing the whole group (Hilary Young, “Neo- Classical Silversmiths’ Drawings at the Victoria and Albert Museum” Apollo Magazine, Vol. 129, N. 328, June 1989, p. 384- 388, 445, fig 9- 10.
) has suggested that most of the drawings represent the stock of a retailer, such as Robert Makepeace, Jefferys and Jones, or Rundell and Bridge. Certainly Smith, Sharp and Scofield supplied the second, and Smith and Sharp the third, while the appearance of the work of all these goldsmiths in the 1781 plate supplied to William Beckford (M. Snodin, M. Baker, ‘William Beckford’s Silver I’, The Burlington Magazine, November and December 1980, pp. 734- 748) strongly suggests the services of a single retailer. The application of handles typical of Smith and Sharp on a cruet stand, which may be connected with Scofield (8389:17), raises the possibility of collaboration of a more complex kind, perhaps through the agency of a designer supplied by the retailer. A similar collaboration is suggested by the repetition of the same motifs on the candlesticks linked to Scofield (8389.20) supplied to Sir John Fane as appear on his toilet service of the same date made by Smith and Sharp (Vanessa Brett, The Sotheby's Directory of Silver 1600-1940, 1986, 19.6.1969, lots 159-63).
Bibliographic reference
Hilary Young, “Neo- Classical Silversmiths’ Drawings at the Victoria and Albert Museum” Apollo Magazine, Vol. 129, N. 328, June 1989, p. 384- 388, 445.
Collection
Accession number
8449B

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Record createdJune 30, 2009
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