Object Description
A magnificent suite of antique sterling silver tureens of oval form with ornate double flying handles and heavy shaped and cast feet with acanthus leaf ornament. Excellent quality and good gauge silver as you’d expect from this world famous English silversmith. Elegant plain styling with a broad border of gadroon ribbing around the top edge. The covers are hand engraved to the front and back with a bugle crest. The bases have a matching armorial hand engraved to the front. Exceptional weight 5359 grams, 172.3 troy ounces. Large tureen – height 30 cm (to top of handle), spread 40 cm, top edge of base measures 37 x 21.5 cm. Small tureens – height 15.5 (to top of handle), Spread 21 cm, top edge of base measures 18.5 cm x 10.5 cm. London 1800 (small) and 1902 (large). Maker 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, he was apprenticed in 1785 to Andrew Fogelberg. First mark entered as plateworker in partnership with William Frisbee in 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 he had established himself as one of London’s top silversmiths producing, amongst others, 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 it was through Rundell, Bridge & Rundell who were appointed Goldsmith in Ordinary to George III in 1804 that 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, the chief modeller and head of the design department, and later John Flaxman II who succeeded him in 1817. During this period Rundell, Bridge & Rundell’s reputation grew due to the patronage of the Prince Regent (later George IV).
Storr left RUNDELL, BRIDGE & RUNDELL in 1819 and soon 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. Under their agreement, 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.