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Tea caddy

Ref: 1723
  • Detail

    Ebony and ivory; the interior lined with red velvet and the fittings silver

    16 × 25.6 × 16 (maximum depth) cm

    Indian (Vizagapatam), circa 1765 (the box)
    English (London), 1766/67 (two caddies) and 1767/68 (one caddy); the spoons also London, but undated

    The silver caddies marked for John Lawford (apprenticeship 6 September 1751), and William Vincent (apprenticeship 10 January1750)

    The spoons marked for Nicholas Hearnden, who appears to have specialised in spoons; he was active from around 1757–1767, and probably later.  Each caddy with crest and initials CP

  • Provenance

    The Mackworth-Praed family, perhaps since the eighteenth century, and by descent

  • Collection

    Private collection

  • Notes

    Anglo-Indian tea caddies and other boxes dating from the middle of the eighteenth century are rarer than examples dating from later in the century; see Amin Jaffer, Furniture from British India and Ceylon, London, 2001, p. 173. Jaffer writes: ‘Prior to the mid-eighteenth century, the practice at Vizagapatam was that of inlaying wood – chiefly ebony, rosewood and padouk – with floral designs… in ivory, the ivory itself engraved and highlighted with applications of lac. The patterns were drawn on a panel of ivory, filled and sliced between 1⁄16 and 1⁄8 inch thick. These were laid down in corresponding recesses in the carcases, the excess mastic used to fill in any gaps and creating a black outline around the ivory.’

    It seems likely that boxes such as the present example were purchased in India and fitted out by the owners on their return. The silver would have been bought from shops, hence the caddies with one maker’s mark and the spoons with another.

    ***

    On obtaining their freedom as goldsmiths, Lawford and Vincent
    went into partnership and are noted as suppliers to Parker and Wakelin in their workmen’s ledgers. They supplied cream pails, épergnes, sugar basins, bread baskets etc. from
    1760 until 1768. After that date, Lawford supplied Wakelins with similar wares on his own account and William Vincent also carried on his own independent business, specialising in tea-caddies. It seems that Lawford died in 1770 – although without leaving a will.  For Lawford and Vincent, see Helen Clifford, Silver in London: the Parker and Wakelin Partnership 1760-1776, 2004, pp. 83 and 208.

    Assuming that the attribution of the mark is correct, Lawford and
    Vincent,  also produced a number of caddy sets – although they do not seem to have supplied these to Wakelins.

    The problem with attributing some London marks of this period is that one of the mark ledgers at the Goldsmiths’ Company [1758-1773] has been lost. The previous assumption that the mark was that of Vere and Lutwych was problematic because that partnership was a firm of retailers
    rather than ‘working silversmiths’.

    We are grateful to Peter Cameron for this information, email, 8 July 2022.

    ***

    The Mackworth-Praeds were a Cornish family, some of whom served as Members of Parliament during the eighteenth century. They came to own late eighteenth- century Bitton House, Teignmouth, Devon. Perhaps best known is Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839), a politician and poet.