Beschreibung:

A PAIR OF VICTORIAN PARCEL-GILT-SILVER AND ENAMEL 'GRAECO-POMPEIAN' 1862 INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION WINE COOLERS, ELKINGTON & CO, BIRMINGHAM, 1862 designed by Auguste Adolphe Willms (1827-1899), enamelled in red, black and pale blue with borders and panels of palmettes and scrolls, each body with vines and straps separating the four ovals of dancing Bacchanalian figures of satyrs playing double pipes or holding the thyrsus and maenads with a wine cup or shaking a tambourine, the flat shoulders with lobed rims and presentation inscriptions, each on four vine applied scroll supports resting on a shaped square plinth on paw feet, with removable liners, undersides engraved 'ELKINGTON & Co.' and with PODR lozenge for 1st November 1862, in a red baize lined oak case with inscribed plaque 'E.S. HETT. ESQ.', also with two letters from Elkington & Co Ltd of 1898 and 1908 and a copy of an Elkington's memorandum of 1898 31cm high, 7280gr (234oz) The inscription reads: Presentation from the Shareholders of Wilson, Sons & Company Limtd. to Edmund Sykes Hett Esq. on his retirement from the Chairmanship of the Company, as a token of their great esteem and appreciation of his valuable Services over a period of more than 20 years. London. 5th July, 1898. Provenance: Elkington & Co., London, sold to Wilson, Sons & Co Ltd and presented to E.S. Hett Esq. in 1898. Thence by direct family descent. Edmund Sykes Hett (c.1832-1901) married in 1857/58 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Julia Claudine Yarrow (1831-1903), dying at Cavendish House, Clapham Common. The South American maritime group, Wilson, Sons, was founded in 1837 in Salvador, Bahia. It is thus one of the oldest existing companies still operating in Brazil. Originally the company specialised in transporting coal, but diversified into a number of related areas including railways, dry docks and storage, merging with Yarrow, Hett & Co in 1877 and by the end of the century becoming the biggest company in Brazil. The earlier letter and memorandum refer to requests from Mr Hett's relative and colleague at Wilson's, Mr Yarrow, to know which particular figures were represented in the ovals. Mr Yarrow apparently organised the purchase and presentation of the coolers. The letter of 1908 records the return of the coolers, having been 'cleaned and lacquered' and suggests (erroneously) that the coolers 'were made specially for the Vienna Exhibiton held in 1873'. The 'Graeco-Pompeian' dessert service received much approbation, when first displayed at the International Exhibition of 1862, held in an enormous hall at South Kensington, London. A.A. Willms designed a number of works for the exhibition, but the Pompeian service was amongst the most popular, helping him to win an Exhibition medal. Whilst the directors of Elkington and Co were jurors at the Exhibition and therefore ineligible for company prizes, the jury nevertheless especially noted the firm for "great merit in designing a dessert service... in excellent taste, and the effect is very beautiful". The original set comprised thirteen pieces and was valued at the then very substantial price of £1,400. Part of it can be seen in Waring's Masterpieces of Industrial Art and Sculpture at the International Exhibition 1862, (see illustration), where he comments on the "judicious combination of coloured enamels with silver, and a degree of artistic finish which are not too often found even in the best works of this class." Later Elkington's went on to make a number of production models of the service, including a silver table garniture set in 1864 (see Christie's, London, 10 June 2010, lot 388) and a variety of pieces from the set in electroplate (see Sotheby's, London, 28 May 2009, lot 448 and 31 October 2006, lot 537). All the later wine coolers appear to differ in one important respect from the pair offered here: the lobed flat shoulders are circular and do not extend out over the handles. One assumes the design was simplified slightly for the later productio