An Erskine Bookplate to Match my Scottish Silver Dessert Spoons

I recently posted an article about a trio of Scottish dessert spoons which had belonged to the Erskine family.  On a trip to the Portobello Market in London, I came across a large stack of bookplates, and when I saw the "Je Pense Plus" motto and the name "James Erskine of Alva Esqr", I couldn't believe it.

James Erskine (1722-1796) was the son of Charles Areskine (the spelling he, but not his children, preferred), and most likely the next owner of the dessert spoons, or perhaps even the one who had the spoons made.  Below is a painting by Francis Lindo of James Erskine with his first wife, Margaret Maguire, and two of their children painted in 1761.  The top of the frame is decorated with the Erskine coat of arms, which matches those on the bookplate.  Lawrence's, the auction house which put the painting up for sale in January of this year, has this to say about James Erskine: "He was appointed Lord of Sessions in Scotland (a senior judiciary role) and took the title Lord Barjarg (named for the family property on this mother's side, later sold) and subsequently changed his name to Lord Alva.  Erskine married Margaret Maguire (1729-1766) in 1749.  They had three children: Charles (1751-1761...), Isabella and John.  After Margaret's death at the age of 37, Erskine married Jean Stirling in 1772 and she bore him a daughter, also called Jean."

Photograph courtesy of the-saleroom.com

The painting below by David Allan hangs in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh, and depicts James Erskine with his second wife, Jean Stirling, and three of his children.  Erskine commissioned the painting in 1780 to commemorate his becoming a founder-subscriber of St. Cecilia's Hall, the new venue for the Music Society of Edinburgh.  According to The National Galleries of Scotland website, James Erskine helped to launch David Allan's career as a portrait and figure painter in the 1760s.  This painting was one of David Allan's first group portraits in the "conversational manner."

Photo courtesy of The National Galleries of Scotland

My short trip to London was wonderful, with the usual regret of "I'll have to save this for next time" being applied to visiting St. Vedast church in Foster Lane to see its collection of church plate, scheduling an appointment to do silver research at Goldsmith's Hall, visiting the Victoria and Albert Museum, and spending more time in silver shops.  However, my visit happily coincided with the monthly meeting of the Silver Spoon Club, to which a "silver friend" invited me.  It was so much fun spending an hour or so talking about nothing but silver, but even more fun to meet people I had hitherto only corresponded with and to meet new silver friends.  I was also lucky enough to meet a couple of dealer friends who were absolutely wonderful.  If I didn't have a husband to consider on this trip, I'd still be talking to them.  Next time, I am going for a month.

Forgeries of Peter Ashley-Russell

It never hurts to educate oneself on forgeries that may be lurking out there, as I know all too well myself (see my blog post on my very own piece of fake Irish silver).  So, here is a link to the London Assay Office's publication illustrating Ashley-Russell's "work" including photos of his fake punches and the spoons themselves: http://www.thegoldsmiths.co.uk/media/3751010/ashleyrussell.pdf.

"I Think More": George II Scottish Dessert Spoons

"Je Pense Plus" - "I Think More" - is the motto of the Erskine clan.  The three dessert spoons bearing this crest and motto were made in Edinburgh in 1754 by Lothian & Robertson.  Thanks to Burke's General Armory, it appears this motto, coupled with the crest of "a dexter hand proper, holding a skene in pale argent, hilted and pommelled or, within a garland of olive leaves proper" is for the Erskine family of Tinwald, County Dumfries (320).  I believe Charles Erskine (or Areskine) had these spoons made. Charles Erksine, born in 1680, married Grizel Grierson in 1712, heiress of John Grierson of Barjarg, through whom he acquired the lands of Barjarg in Dumfriesshire.  In August of 1753, he married again to Elizabeth, daughter of William Harestanes of Craigs in Kirkcudbright.  Perhaps Elizabeth had these dessert spoons made shortly after her marriage to Charles.  It is also possible that Charles' son James had these spoons made when he was nominated as one of the Barons of the Court of Exchequer in May 1754.  I am choosing, however, to focus on Charles Erskine in this article.  Below is a portrait of Charles Erskine

Photo credit: National Galleries of Scotland

Charles Ereskine was the third son of Sir Charles Erskine of Alva, baronet, and great-grandson of John Erskine, Earl of Mar and treasurer of Scotland.  Charles Erskine had a successful legal career.  In 1700, at the age of 20, Charles Erskine became one of the four regents of Edinburgh University, and in 1707, he became the first professor of public of Law of Nature and Nations at the university.  Following his appointment, he left to study the law in Leiden in the Netherlands (Cairns 334).  He was appointed Solicitor General for Scotland in 1725, served as Lord Advocate between 1737 and 1742, and was Lord Justice Clerk - the second most senior judge in Scotland -  from 1748 until his death in 1763.  In 1744, Charles Erskine was raised to the supreme criminal and civil courts as Lord Tinwald.  Below is a photograph of Tinwald House in Dumfriesshire, built in 1740 and designed by architect William Adam.  Charles Erskine later sold his estates at Tinwald to purchase the family estate of Alva from his nephew, Sir Henry Erskine (345):

© Copyright Colin Kinnear and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

As a lawyer, intellectual, linguist, traveler, a patron of the arts and a book collector, Charles Erskine was in the thick of the Scottish Enlightenment (Baston 1).  He was one of the founding members of the Edinburgh Philosophical Society in 1737, a member of the Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture, a member of the Board of Trustees for Fisheries and Manufactures, and an extraordinary Director of the Royal Bank of Scotland (Cairns 345).  Charles Erskine was described by a contemporary as "not only an eminent lawyer and judge, but likewise a polite scholar, and an elegant speaker and writer" (346). 

Following are photographs of the spoons and their hallmarks:

Sources:
Baston, Karen Grudzien. "The Library of Charles Areskine (1680-1763): Book Collecting and Lawyers in Scotland, 1700-1760." The Early Modern Intelligencer. WordPress, 2010. 
        Web. 21 Nov. 2015.
Burke, Bernard. The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales: Comprising & Registry of Armorial Bearings from the Earliest to the Present Time. Harrison & Sons, 
        1864. Google Books. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.

Cairns, John. "The Origins of the Edinburgh Law School: The Union of 1707 and the Regius Chair." Edinburgh Law Review, Vol 11, No. 3, pp. 300-48, 2007. Web. 21 Nov. 2015. DOI: 
        10.3366/elr.2007.11.3.300.

Straiton, Doug. "Charles (Erskine) Areskine (1680-1763)." WikiTree. Interesting.com, Inc. 23 Jan. 2015. Web. 21 Nov. 2015.
 Wikipedia contributors. "Charles Erskine, Lord Tinwald." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 4 May. 2015. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.

Wikipedia contributors. "Tinwald House." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 10 Oct. 2015. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.

Theta Charity Anitques Show, Houston, Texas

Sometimes you need to spend 15 minutes expounding on the beauty of a flared foot on an early Scottish silver mug.  Sometimes you simply need to clutch a Paul de Lamerie dinner plate to your chest as you look at the dealer's other silver.  Sometimes you just need to listen to someone talk about their collecting passion even though it may not be your own.  And sometimes, you need to try on a 4-carat Van Cleef and Arpels diamond ring.  I got to do all of these things and more at the Theta Charity Antiques show in Houston yesterday. 

The early Scottish mug was at Shrubsole.  After having looked at items on their website and in their catalogues for so long, it was a whole new experience getting to see them in the flesh.  Benjamin Miller, Director of Research at Shrubsole, was a lot of fun and indulged my need to hold and discuss several pieces of silver with great enthusiasm.  At one point, he put a ginormous square salver by Paul de Lamerie in my hands which could easily replace dumbells for a bicep workout.  Poor man had a lot of polishing to do after I left.  I was excited to also meet Tim Martin, who was just as personable in person as he is in his emails.  One day soon I will have to visit their shop in New York for more silver fondling and discussion.

I found the Paul de Lamerie dinner plate at a dealer previously unknown to me, The Silver Vault out of Woodstock, Illinois.  The shop does not have a web presence, so I cannot point you to a website.  I quickly saw that Peter Tinkler, one of the owners, shared my enthusiasm and passion for good, old, plain silver and we spent quite a while talking.  Peter's father Rod was also on hand to discuss, among other topics, his thoughts on feminine versus masculine silver and training chickens by whistling, and calling him an absolutely delightful man would be scant praise indeed.  I don't know the last time - if ever - that I have laughed so much when talking about silver.  The dinner plate was made in 1725 and is number 20 in a large set made by de Lamerie for Benjamin Mildmay when he was 19th Baron Fitzwalter.  Mildmay was created Earl Fitzwalter in 1730, and two previous posts of mine - here and here - discuss the inventory of his plate taken in 1739 and work de Lamerie did for him.  The Clark Art Institute has a set of twelve plates by de Lamerie of 1725 from the same set as the Silver Vault plate.  The Fitzwalter plate inventory contains the following entry, and one assumes it must include the 1725 dinner plates:

Paul de Lamerie's work ledgers for Mildmay contain an entry for "To 12 Dishes & 3 Dozen of plates" with entries for the fashioning and engraving of same.  Although the work on the page containing these entries is not dated, the first date on the following page is December 5, 1727, so we can assume the three dozen plates were made prior to this date.  The highest plate number in the Clark Art Institute collection is No. 33, so it is likely these plates and the Silver Vault plate are part of the "3 Dozen of plates" listed in de Lamerie's ledger:

I also had the pleasure of meeting Mary Wise of Grosvenor Antiques, a dealer in antique porcelain.  Although I am not a collector of early English porcelain, I could appreciate the beautiful pieces she had and it was fun to see forms that I am familiar with in silver.  Mary truly has a passion for early porcelain, and her knowledge of her preferred subject was inspiring.

Then, drawn in by the amiability and invitation of dealers Steven Fearnley and David McKeone of J.S. Fearnley to try on jewellery for fun, I tried on a gorgeous cushion-cut diamond ring, an old stone in a newer setting by Van Cleef and Arpels.  And it fit.  Again, Steven was so willing to talk with us and tell us about his pieces.

We had heard about the show from wonderful local dealers of antique jewellery, Bell and Bird, and when we received unsolicited tickets in the mail from Tim Martin, that clinched it.  To meet, talk with, bounce ideas off others who share a passion for antiques is so invigorating, and when it's your area of collecting, so much the better.  Every dealer we spoke with was enthusiastic and genuinely happy to share their knowledge with us.  Thank you to the dealers at the Theta Charity Antiques Show for a wonderful time.

Earl Fitzwalter's Bottle Tickets

Paul de Lamerie's ledger recording the work he did for Earl Fitzwalter has an interesting entry:

"To mending & added Silver to 3 pieces with Chains to hang on Bottles of Wine."  That description sounds an awful lot like a wine label or bottle ticket.  So why not just identify it by one of those names?

The ledger entry is dated March 21, 1737 - which I believe is a Julian calendar date - so, if I have my calculations correct, March 21, 1737 in the Julian calendar corresponds to April 1, 1738 in the Gregorian calendar.  According to the Google Books entry for the book Wine Labels, 1730- 2003: a Worldwide History by John Salter, "silver wine labels first made their appearance in the 1730s to identify the contents of unmarked opaque glass wine bottles."  N.M. Penzer, in his The Book of the Wine-Label, discusses the Plate Offenses Act of 1738, which set forth the mandatory marks to be applied to plate and included an extensive list of items by name or by characteristic not required to be so marked (34-35).  As there is no mention of wine labels or bottle tickets in this list, Mr. Penzer concludes that these items were unknown at this time (35).  What I believe Mr. Penzer to be saying is that, had bottle tickets been common when this Act was written, in his opinion by reason of their smallness and lightness they would not have been required to be hallmarked, and therefore should have appeared by name in the exempt list along with the other specifically-identified items of plate "connected with the bottle." (Id.).    

Unfortunately, I do not have access to a copy of the Wine Labels book to read about or see photographs of these earliest silver wine labels.  What Paul de Lamerie's ledger entry tells me, however, is that in early 1738, bottle tickets - by any name - were likely not very well known, otherwise Lamerie (or his ledger-keeper) would have used that name instead of the description of the item, e.g. "To mending and added silver to three bottle tickets."  This entry is for a repair, so we also know that the Earl's bottle tickets were made prior to 1738.  It's too bad we don't know exactly when, or by whom, they were made.  So, although not completely unknown in 1738, it would seem bottle tickets were sufficiently uncommon for a prominent maker not to be able to record them by name.

Sources:

Essex Records Office: Estate and Family  Records, D/DM F13.
Penzer, N.M. The Book of the Wine-Label. London: Home & Van Thal, 1947. Internet Archive. Web, 10 July 2015.


 

Earl Fitzwalter's Salt Spoons

Recently I purchased a copy of the inventory of the Earl of Fitzwalter's plate taken by his butler, Henry Longmore, on June 22, 1739 from the Essex Records Office.  Among the entries for five dozen plates, the dozens of "forck's" and several candlesticks, is an entry for "4 wrought Salts Spoons" weighing 2 oz 6 dwts, or 71.5 grams.  I tend to think of salt spoons along the lines of Geoffrey Wills's definition in Silver: early 18th century examples that are miniatures of ordinary spoons (130), which would not seem to distinguish them much from snuff spoons.  In a previous post called Snuff Spoons or Early Salt Spoons, I asked just that question: could the small spoons we call snuff spoons also be early salt spoons?  

Below is a photograph of four small spoons in my silver drawer.  The smallest one is 3 1/8 inches and the largest is 3 5/16 inches.  Two of these spoons are "heavy" for their size, but are only about 9 grams each.  The four salt spoons in the Fitzwalter inventory weigh in at almost 17.9 grams apiece.  Those seem to be some pretty heavy salt spoons.

 

Below is an excerpt from Longmore's inventory showing the entry for the Salts Spoons.  Note also the listing for the mustard spoon weighing 9 pennyweights, or 14 grams.

Does anyone know of any early Irish salt/snuff spoons?  Along with early Irish rattail teaspoons, I have not seen any early Irish salt/snuff spoons.  Early Irish salt trenchers exist (see the photographs in my previous post on my visit to the San Antonio Museum of Art) - though I don't see nearly as many as English examples - so one would assume that early Irish salt spoons also existed at one time.  Same for early Irish rattail teaspoons: there are early Irish tea pots, leading one to believe that teaspoons were made early on, as well.

Sources:

Essex Records Office: Estate and Family  Records, D/DM F12.

Wills, Geoffrey.  Silver: for pleasure and investment. New York: Arco Publishing Company, Inc., 1969. Print.

George III Irish Silver Bowl - *GASP* It's a FAKE!

~Below is my original post on the bowl.  After posting it, I received a nice note from a reader letting me know this bowl is a fake.  At the end of this post is more information on the faker~

Below is an Irish silver bowl that dates to 1798 in the reign of George III.  Although the bowl is later than I normally collect, it reminds me of earlier forms.  It measures 4 1/8 inches in diameter (10.5 cm) and 2 3/8 inches (6 cm) in height, is of heavy gauge, and is plain with a lovely hammered finish.

Strawberries.  Yum.

The maker's mark on the bowl is IE surrounded by pellets.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to attribute this mark to a silversmith.  The only Dublin maker's mark of IE referenced by Douglas Bennett that fits the date of the bowl is James England, who worked from 1791-1815 (167).  However, James England's punch is not surrounded by pellets.

Does anyone have an idea who this maker is?

I believe this would have been used as a sugar bowl.  Or could it have been a waste bowl?  

Hallmarks on bowl

UPDATE: IT'S A FAKE!! After a tipster let me know this bowl was a fake, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed, but I also had this thought: "I thought it was not quite right!".  I like the bowl, it was not expensive, but before and after buying it, something about it nagged me.  It didn't seem to fit the design of sugar bowls of the 1790s in Ireland.  However, I brushed away the nagging feeling and bought it anyway without doing as much research as I should have.  

A friend of mine reminded me that this faker is dealt with by Bennett in his Collecting Irish Silver.  About the faker, Bennett has this to say: "'IE' is well known to both the London and Dublin assay offices, where examples of his work are kept for reference. (Do they want mine?)  Many an antique dealer has been caught out with these marks, and the only clue that can be offered is to watch out for the distinctive maker's mark of 'IE' with small beads encircling the initials" (242).

Distinctive maker's mark, indeed.  Has anyone else fallen into IE's trap?

Sources:

Bennett, Douglas. Collecting Irish Silver. London: Souvenir Press Ltd., 1984. Print.