Wakelin & Taylor Silver Sugar Vase, 1790

This very elegant Georgian silver sugar vase was made by the important silversmiths Wakelin & Taylor.

This good quality, vase-shaped dish stands on a pedestal foot and has two side handles. The lift-off cover has a cut-out for a sugar spoon and is topped by an acorn finial. This is a fine piece of silver in excellent condition.

The main body has a band of chased acanthus leaf decoration around the base and is engraved with a coat-of-arms supported by a lion (or wolf?) and a hound. The banner below is engraved with the Latin motto "A Deo et Rege" (translates to "From God and the King") and surmounted above by an earl's coronet. The cover bears the conforming crest also surmounted by a five-pearled coronet. The arms are impaled denoting a marriage and those to the dexter half are for Stanhope and are likely to belong to either the statesman and scientist Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope or General Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Harrington who served in the American Revolutionary War as Viscount Petersham.

The pedestal foot bears a clear set of hallmarks including the crowned IW/WT mark of the makers. The partnership of John Wakelin and William Taylor was a continuation of the firm initially founded by George Wickes during the reign of King George I and later evolving in to Garrard and Company through the 19th and 20th centuries. For the duration of this period, the workshop in Panton Street maintained its "by appointment" status to various members of the British Royal family and items bearing the marks of any of these makers is a sure sign of high quality.