Decanter
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Decanter |
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This decanter of 1865 consists of a pear shaped bottle of lightly tinted glass with a porphyry neck, the whole encased in a silver mount. The mount is decorated with filigree work and encrusted with Persian seals, intaglio gems, classical coins, mother-of-pearl, lapis lazuli, and semi-precious stones. The spout is formed by a goat’s head with curling horns linking it to the neck of the decanter, with a stopper in its open mouth secured by a chain. The handle is formed by a winged monster with claw feet, thought to have been based the pommel of an Assyrian dagger presented by Burges to the British Museum in 1864. (Strange Genius, p.110). On the decanter lid a group of two horses and a monkey, carved from Chinese jade, is surrounded by a silver palisade and surmounted by a silver arch with an ornamental hanging harness bell. | |
| The decanter
is inscribed ‘WILLIELMUS BURGES EX HON(O)ARIIS LITERARIIS MDCCCLXV’. This
suggests that Burges may have had the decanter made for himself out of the
proceeds from the publication of Art Applied to Industry in 1865. This is
reinforced by the claim by his brother-in-law, R.P.Pullan, in The Designs of
William Burges (1865), that the architect sometimes spent the earnings from
his writings on plate for his own use made to his own designs. The design of
this decanter is similar in many respects to drawings which may date from as
early as 1858, to be found in Burges’s Orfèvrerie Domestique album in the
RIBA (see Crook, pls. 238-9). The decanter’s eclectic mixture of materials
and stylistic sources is typical of Burges. It formed part of a group of
goblets and decanters described by The Builder as ‘some of the best pieces
of modern grotesque to be seen’ (Crook, pp.314-5). Makers marks of J.M. (Josiah Mendelson, Silversmiths) on lid, with those of George Angell on the main body, hallmarked London 1864-5. Height 28cm / 11 1/8”, width 19cm/ 7 ¾” |
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