Object Description
A handsome antique sterling silver serving platter of oval form with a shaped gadroon border. Excellent quality and good gauge silver as you’d expect from this world famous English silversmith. Large size. On the top edge, to both sides, there is a hand engraved armorial* with motto for the Earl of Stamford.
Weight 3591 grams, 115.4 troy ounces.
Top measures 61 x 45 cm.
London 1819.
Maker Paul Storr.
Sterling silver.
Signed/Inscribed*. The motto “A Ma Puissance” meaning “according to my power” is the motto of the Grey family who were the Earls of Stamford and prominent landowners in the town.
PAUL STORR
Paul Storr (1771 – 1844), was one of the most talented silversmiths of the late Georgian period. Today his legacy of exceptionally well crafted silver can be found worldwide in museums and private collections. Son of Thomas Storr, a silver chaser, apprenticed 1785 to Andrew Fogelberg. First mark, as plateworker, in partnership with William Frisbee 1792. Second mark alone 1793. 3rd mark 1793. 4th mark 1794. 5th mark 1799. Subsequent 6th – 12th marks entered 1807-1834. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, established as one of London’s top silversmiths, he was producing commissions for Royalty. In 1801 he married Elizabeth Susanna Beyer with whom he was to have ten children. In 1807 Paul Storr entered into a working relationship with Philip Rundell and by 1811 was a partner, and managing the workshops for Rundell, Bridge & Rundell. During this period he kept his own marks and separate workshop, however Rundell, Bridge & Rundell were appointed Goldsmith in Ordinary to George III in 1804, and through them his reputation as a master silversmith grew. His talents lay in being able to transform ideas and designs from Rundell, Bridge & Rundell’s designers, William Theed II and later John Flaxman II. Rundell, Bridge & Rundell’s reputation grew due to the subsequent patronage of the Prince Regent (later George IV). Storr left RUNDELL, BRIDGE & RUNDELL in 1819 and went into partnership with John Mortimer, the assistant of a retiring retail goldsmith and jeweller, WILLIAM GRAY, of 13 New Bond Street. The firm was renamed STORR & MORTIMER and Storr concentrated on the manufacture of goods for Mortimer to sell in the shop at 13 New Bond Street. Storr and Mortimer, now manufacturing and retail goldsmiths, jewellers and silversmiths with an influential clientele, moved to 156, New Bond Street, in 1838. Storr retired to Tooting in 1839 and died in 1844.