Description / Expertise
The base of each ewer is modelled as a turtle with three adorsed satyrs seated on its back supporting the body on their arms and shoulders. The ovoid bodies are cast and chased with scenes of Romulus and Remus and the she-wolf, together with putti gambolling amongst the waves with sea monsters. The neck is decorated with shells and grotesque masks and the handle is formed of putti entwined with a dolphin and a faun.
It would seem likely that the form of these ewers is based on that of the pair of ewers and stands by Rundell, Bridge and Rundell of 1822 (Carlton House: The Past Glories of George IV’s Palace, 1991, pp. 121 and 161, no. 76, pl. XXX). These is turn would seem to have used the ‘Lomellini’ ewers and basins as their inspiration as it is known that they were with Rundells in 1807. The smaller Lomellini ewers which were made in Genoa in 1619 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and Victoria and Albert Museum, London) have a wide band around the body cast in high relief with nymphs and tritons; their overall shape is also similar as is the figural handle. Much of Farrell’s work shows a familiarity with Renaissance engravings and workmanship although he reinterpreted and did not slavishly copy these pieces.
Farrell used a turtle as the base of an extraordinary shell-shaped sauceboat of 1824(Vanessa Brett, The Sotheby’s Directory of Silver 1600-1940, 1986, p. 271, no. 1245) which was sold at Phillips, London (30th November 2001, lot 76) which in turn drew on an engraving of 1548 by Cornelis Floris of Antwerp (John Hayward, Virtuoso Goldsmiths 1540-1620, 1976, pl. 199) for inspiration. Turtles were also used on the stands for the ewers of 1807 in the Royal Collection mentioned above.
Edward Cornelius Farrell was associated for about ten years of his career from about 1817 to 1827 with the dealer and retail silversmith Kensington Lewis whose aim was to “supply old works, or works in the old idiom, which might otherwise be difficult to acquire” (John Culme, Nineteenth-Century Silver, 1977, p. 68) . He was appointed silversmith and jeweller to the Duke of York and during the 1820s supplied his royal patron with an extraordinary range of objects in outlandish taste all of which came from the workshop of Edward Farrell. These included massive works such as the Hercules destroying the Hydra candelabrum. Lewis also employed Farrell to re-work older pieces such as reusing seventeenth-century chased plaques. Ellenor Alcorn ( p. 279, no. 187) states that the most successful collaborative efforts between Lewis and Farrell “drew heavily on mannerist conceits”.
After the sudden death of the Duke of York in 1827 the quality of Farrell’s work declined, due no doubt, to a lack of patronage from Lewis.
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