Paul de Lamerie (1688 - London 1751) A HIGHLY IMPORTANT PAIR OF GEORGE II SILVER CANDLESTICKS

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Each on cast shaped square base with scrolls, foliage, and rocaille, the angles formed as stylized shells, rising to a stem modelled as a putto herm draped in a garland of flowers and fruit, holding aloft a candle socket with auricular and rococo ornament, the removeable shaped circular nozzle cast with a border of flowers and scrolls, marked above the angles of the base

11in. (28cm.) high; 70oz. 10dwt. (2206g.)

Provenance

Hugh Jessop Lrd., London 1947
Christie's , New York, October 1964
Sotheby's London June 1986
His Excellency Mohamed Mahdi Altajir

Exhibitions

Christie's London, The Glory of the Goldsmith: Magnificent Gold & Silver from the Al-Tajir Collection, London, 1989 (no. 83, p.107)
Goldsmiths Hall, London, Paul De Lamerie: The Work of England's Master Silversmith (1688-1751), 16th May - 22nd June, 1990 (no 104, p. 15716th 

Silversmith Biography

Paul de Lamerie arrived in England with his Huguenot parents in or before 1689, having been baptized at 's Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands in 1688. In 1703 he was apprenticed to the Huguenot goldsmith Pierre Platel, and after being admitted to the freedom of the Goldsmiths' Company, he registered his first mark and set up a workshop in Windmill Street, Soho, in 1712. He took thirteen apprentices between 1715 and 1749 who paid premiums varying between £10 and £45m In 1716 he married Louisa Juliott, also a Huguenot, and by her had six children, three of whom died in childhood. Little more of his personal history is known, although his career in the Goldsmiths' Company is comparatively well documented. By 1717, he was already referred to as 'the King's Silversmith' but again in a complaint 'for making and selling Great quantities of Large Plate which he doth not bring to Goldsmith's Hall to be mark't according to Law.' He joined the livery in 1717; fourteen years later he was elected to the court of assistants. In 1743 he was appointed fourth warden and in 1747 second warden; that he never became prime warden probably due to ill health. From the outset he had wealthy clients such as the Honourable George Treby and the Duke of Sutherland. Among his more important later patrons were Sir Robert Walpole, Baron Anson, and the fifth Earl of Mountrath. A gradual expansion of his business culminated in his move in 1739 to considerably larger premises in Gerrard street. His pre-eminent position in the trade is signified by the commission he received in 1740 from the Goldsmiths' Company to provide two of their most splendid pieces of ceremonial display plate, a silver-gilt inkstand and the famous rococo ewer and dish.