Charles Kandler

( Unknown - 1776 )

A Pair of George II Sauce Boats

Charles Kandler

( Unknown - 1776 )

A Pair of George II Sauce Boats

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London, 1733
Maker’s mark of Charles Kandler

Length: 22cm, 8.6 in
Weight: 1368 g, 44 oz

The sauceboats on oval pedestal feet with a chased band of over-lapping acanthus leaves. The main bodies with fabulous masks of Neptune between two cornucopias. The sides further decorated with swags of the fruits of the ocean. The two central ovoid cartouches surrounded by scrolls and shells and engraved with the family crest of a demi-griffin. The raised bodies rising to a scalloped rim. The fabulous cast handles formed as scrolling acanthus and terminating on the main body on a wonderfully chased shell.

SILVERSMITH BIOGRAPHY

Charles Kandler's life and career are certainly an enigma. It has been suggested by several commentators that there were in fact two or three Kandlers, owing to the fact that a variety of marks were listed sequentially under the names of Charles Kandler (1727), Charles Frederick Kandler (1735), and Frederick Kandler (after 1739 until 1776). Moreover, all three of these names were registered at the same address at St. James's continuously from 1735 to 1773. It is possible, and indeed likely, that the marks were used by one or two goldsmiths, perhaps a father and son, who were inconsistent in their use of first names. In regard to the elaborate decoration and high degree of plasticity of the silver bearing these marks, stylistic continuity is certainly apparent. These characteristics have tended to reinforce a hypothetical connection with the modeller Johann Joachin Kändler of the Meissen porcelain manufactory. Kandler furnished quantities of elaborate plate to the nobility, most notably the earls of Bristol. His mark can be found on the largest of all surviving wine cisterns (8,000 ounces), dated 1734-35 and now in the Hermitage Museum, Leningrad (Hernmarck 1977, pl. 284).