Object Description
A good antique sterling silver cup with matching cover, urn shape with broad gadroon borders. Lovely plain style and very good weight. Excellent patina. Uninscribed. Gilt interior and inscription to the inside rim. Weight 1156 grams, 37.1 troy ounces. Height 29 cms (to top of lid), 20.5 cms (to top of side handle). Spread across handles 25 cms. London 1767. Maker Daniel Smith and Robert Sharp.
Biography – Daniel Smith and Robert Sharp, a London silversmith partnership.
Daniel Smith, apprenticed to Thomas Gladwin of Merchant Taylors Company, free 1753/4. 1st mark c1759. Livery 1765. 2nd mark, with Robert Sharp, c1763. 3rd mark, with Richard Carter and Robert Sharp, 1778. 4th mark, with Robert Sharp, 1780. Smith seems to have retired in 1788 when Sharp entered a separate mark.
Robert Sharp, originally of Newcastle on Tyne, apprenticed to Gawen Nash 1747 and turned over the same day to Thomas Gladwin Citizen and Merchant Taylor, free 1757. First mark in partnership with Daniel Smith 1763. Supplier to Parker and Wakelin. His nephew Robert Sharp was apprenticed to his uncle 1771. Second mark as plateworker, in parnership with Richard Carter and Daniel Smith 1778. Third, fourth and fifth marks, in partnership with Smith only again, 1780. This last mark has been ascribed previously to Robert Salmon, spoonmaker.
A curious characteristic of the marks of Smith and Sharp after the Carter partnership was over, and of Sharp alone in 1788, is that each shows at the top edge of the punch traces of the bottom of the initials of the former partner, apparently intentionally.