MARK OF AARON LESTOURGEON, LONDON, 1772

This tea caddy is part of a small group of London silver made between 1770 and 1772 decorated with particularly fine engraved narrative scenes. The work is attributed to Robert Clee (b.c.1710-1773), a specialist engraver. He possessed an engraver's reference library, and his sophisticated workshop supplied Parker and Wakelin, Thomas Heming, and Aaron Lestourgeon. The lack of such finely engraved pieces after 1773, the year of Clee's death, is further evidence of his hand, as cited by Robert Barker in his unpublished paper presented to the Silver Society, 1988.

Clee's business card, on which he advertised himself as 'Engraver At the Golden Key in Panton Street Near Leicester-Fields, London'' is particularly magnificent. His intricate and naturalistic style is displayed to great effect on other trade cards executed by him, such as that for the cut-glass manufacturers Maydwell and Windle's of Norfolk Street, Strand, now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (accession no. E.858-1997). Similarly accomplished is the card he engraved for the Haymarket chemist Richard Siddatt, an example of which is preserved in the Wellcome Collection, London.

The engraving on this tea caddy is similar to a teapot by Francis Crump, 1772, now at the The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, another tea caddy of 1772, sold at Sotheby's, New York, April 16, 1996, lot 278, a punch bowl by Daniel Smith and Robert Sharp, 1770, exhibited London, Christie's, The Glory of the Goldsmith, London, 1989, no. 103, a set of three condiment vases by Louis Courtauld and George Cowles, 1771-1772, originally made for Nathaniel Curzon at Kedleston Hall, now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and a pair of condiment vases from the Bayreuth Collection, also by Courtauld and Cowles, sold Christie's, London, 7 July 1923, lot 72.