all that glisters--8/15/25

15 Aug 2025

all that glisters--8/15/25

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Today's selection-- from Rogues and Scholars by James Stourton. As antique silver collectibles regained popularity, auction houses adjusted to meet increased demand.

“Pick up a copy of any antiques magazine from the early 1970s and between the mahogany sidetables and sporting paintings are advertisers for London silver dealers, now mostly disappeared: Partridge, Tessier, Michael Welby, How of Edinburgh, Simon Kaye, and some survivors, S. J. Phillips, Koopman and S. J. Shrubsole: They evoke a time when people still bought table silver for dining rooms. Timothy Schroder put it succinctly in suggesting that electric light and eating in the kitchen eroded this need. As he explained to the author, 'Silver, when illuminated by flickering candlelight, comes alive and almost dances before the eyes, but when lit by electric light it becomes flat and dead.' Domestic and economic changes may have worked against the market, but the London silver trade remained buoyant, thanks to the competition of collectors seeking grand display silver at the top end, and the buyers of 'collectables', like spoons and wine labels and 'novelties', at the bottom. Historically, silver has been, and still is, an important element in the business of 'show' visible in private houses, churches, government and diplomacy. Another factor that came into play was the systematic collection building of certain American museums over the period. Boston, Huntington Art Gallery and Williamsburg, among others, were largely supplied by London dealers.

“Silver offers many faces: for some it represents wealth, art and history, and for others it is also a commodity for its base value, like gold; but, as every dealer will tell you, there is no correlation between the value of silversmiths at the highest level and that of the metal. Changes of taste were significant in impacting value, as Regency silver and the work of Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, the Royal Goldsmiths and their manufacturing partner, Paul Storr, became as sought after as the ever-desirable early eighteenth century Huguenot makers. Even more striking is the change in attitude during the 1970s towards Victorian commemorative silver, which shifted from its melt value to being enjoyed as sculpture. John Culme, a former director of Sotheby's and historian of the silver market, noted that, 'While the trade was largely content to carry on their businesses in much the same way as had their pre-World War II predecessors, there was an increasing interest in the history of silver and the lives and times of its makers. Probably the most influential individual in this, mixing an academic approach with a keen commercial awareness, was Christie's silver director, Arthur Grimwade.' In the view of Lewis Smith of Koopman, the auctioneers controlled the market during the period of this book, and none more so than Grimwade.

A selection of English sterling silver tableware spoons

“Arthur Grimwade (1913-2002) was an exception to the ranks of Etonian directors at Christie's. Head of the silver department from 1954 to 1979, the undisputed leader of his profession, he was also a first-class, self-taught academic. Perhaps Grimwade's greatest legacy is London Goldsmiths, Their Marks and Lives (1976), a consummate work of scholarship in which he identifies the marks of hundreds of eighteenth-century silversmiths, alongside a biographical dictionary of 2,600 of them. One of his colleagues, Christopher Wood, described him: 'tall, bony and irascible, Arthur had a face gadrooned like a piece of old English silver. His empire was the Strong Room, in the basement, where one could occasionally hear him hurling some wrongly marked piece of silver against the wall.' Grimwade was old-fashioned, and during the late 1960s he attempted to ban female employees from wearing either boots or trousers. According to Wood, 'most of the girls reacted by wearing the shortest possible mini skirts'. Grimwade wrote a delightful diary, Silver for Sale (1994), which is the only published account of pre-war Christie's.

“Mockingly referring to his beloved silver as 'tin', Grimwade had one immeasurable advantage over all his competitors. In the 1930s, he had started compiling a card index that listed every important piece of silver that Christie's had ever sold, back to 1830. This hundred-year record meant that he could reconstruct the entire history of most pieces he was offered. Grimwade was responsible for huge numbers of silver sale catalogues, establishing standards for auction-room cataloguing and remaining indispensable to students. In the years immediately following the war, silver flooded onto the market, and Christie's held more sales than at any other time since. During the 1960s and 1970s, Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips were each selling 200 to 250 lots a week. Fortunately, given the quantity, Grimwade was also a superb auctioneer.

“Sotheby's, like the other auction houses, benefited from the increased activity in the market for antique silver, but was at a disadvantage. Head of its Silver and Jewellery Department was Fred Rose, described by Culme as 'a Lincolnshire auctioneer's clerk who had joined Sotheby's in 1936. Although his first interest was in furniture, he was obliged to turn his attention to other areas of the market during the war.' He was joined in 1956 by Richard Came, whose strengths as head of the department after Rose's retirement in 1965 lay in dealing with clients and securing property for sale. A flamboyant personality, Came would ride his 'bone-shaker' bike to the office at break-neck speed, wearing a pinstripe suit and bowler hat. Unlike Grimwade, Came was not academically minded, but he was Sotheby's most talented auctioneer after Peter Wilson. Given Grimwade's ascendancy, Sotheby's were fortunate to be given the landmark sale of the Berkeley Castle binner Service in 1960. In this world record breaking sale, a Louis XV silver service, consisting of 168 pieces made in Paris by Jacques Roettiers 1735-8, was bought by Partridge on behalf of Stavros Niarchos for the colossal sum of £207,000.

“Most of the major post-war sales were held at Christie's. When the Earl of Lonsdale abandoned Lowther Castle he sold much of the family plate there in 1947 for very modest prices. The Lonsdale version of Rundell's Shield of Achilles designed and modelled by John Flaxman (one of five originally made in 1821 and 1822, the first of which was purchased by George IV), made only £520.' By the time Christie's sold Lord Brownlow's silver, prices were rising, particularly for rarities. This can be followed through the large pair of James II tankards with Chinoiserie decoration made in London in 1686, which had descended through the Brownlow family. First sold at Christie's in 1963, they realised £17,000; they reappeared in the saleroom in 1968, selling for £56,000, and then again at Sotheby's New York, in Jaime Ortiz-Patina's sale in 1992, when they sold for $797,500.”