Adam's THE LIBRARY COLLECTION 1st May 2024

113 www.adams.ie The Library Collection | 1 st May 2024 221 A PAIR OF GEORGE II SILVER LOZENGE SHAPED SECOND-COURSE DISHES, London c.1754, maker’s mark of Paul Crespin, with shaped gadrooned rims, the plain centres engraved with the Earl of Hardwicke’s coat of arms, scratch weights, N.1. 35=18½, N.2. 36=14½ (c.70 troy ozs). 38.5cm wide € 7,000 - 10,000 The crests are those of The Earl of Hardwick. The Hard- wicke earldom, an English peerage of the Yorke family, was created in 1754 for Philip Yorke. Yorke was also made 1st Baron Hardwicke in 1733 and was Lord High Chan- cellor of Great Britain between 1737 and 1756. These dishes were made in 1754, the same year in which Yorke became 1st Earl of Hardwicke, and so are likely to be one of first instances of silverware engraved with the Hard- wicke coat of arms. In 1713 Paul Crespin (1694- 1772) began apprenticing un- der Jean Pons, a silversmith and fellow Huguenot, living in the same parish in Westminster as Crespin’s family, St Giles in the Fields. Between 1720 and 1721 Crespin be- came free of the Longbowstring Makers’ Company and registered his first two marks at Goldsmiths’ Hall. Crespin was one of the foremost goldsmiths of this period, and worked alongside contemporaries including Paul de Lamerie the renowned English silversmith. Though the pair had no formal partnership, Crespin and Lamarie are known to have worked together; this is best demon- strated by the pair of wine coolers issued by the Jewel House for Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chester- field (1694-1773) and Ambassador to the Hague (with one now in the Vitoria & Albert Museum, and the other in the National Gallery). Interestingly Paul de Lamarie, produced a crested Ewer in 1736 for Philip Yorke whilst he was still a Baron.