Pair of Dinner Plates, 1839 Baron Armorials
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Dinner Plates (pair) - London 1839 by Mortimer & Hunt - 24cm diameter; 1100g combined weight - FS/9606
These are a wonderful quality pair of circular silver dinner plates that could equally well be used for serving platters.
Measuring 10" in diameter these top quality early Victorian plates were made by Mortimer and Hunt who were direct successors to Storr & Mortimer. Paul Storr retired from the business on December 31st 1838 and so these plates were early pieces in the new partnership and much of the company's workforce of highly skilled silversmiths would have still been employed - hence the quality one would expect from a Paul Storr product is blatantly evident in these plates. The Mortimer & Hunt partnership was fairly short-lived making the maker's mark relatively rare; it lasted until 1843 when the former retired and the company was restyled as Hunt & Roskell.
These superb dinner plates are in excellent condition with typical knife scratches to the front. The border of both plates are crisply engraved with the coronet of a baron and a full coat-of-arms with the motto "TOUT BIEN OU RIEN" ("all or nothing").
These are the marital arms of the British peer and Whig politician Charles Noel Noel, 1st Earl of Gainsborough (1781-1866), styled Lord Barham (3rd Baron Barham) between 1823 and 1841, and his fourth wife, Lady Frances Jocelyn (1814-1885), daughter of Robert Jocelyn, 3rd Earl of Roden and became the Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria on her ascension to the throne in 1837, until the death of the Countess of Gainsborough in 1885. They had two children, the poet Roden Noel and the philanthropist Lady Victoria Buxton. The family seat is Exton Hall in Rutland.
Further information can be found on Wikipedia at these links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Noel,_1st_Earl_of_Gainsborough
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Noel,_Countess_of_Gainsborough