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FIG 2 Octagonal sugar caster, 1674–75, unidentified maker’s mark ‘RR’ with an annulet between two pellets beneath, London, silver, ht 19cm, Lord Egremont, Petworth House, West Sussex Photo: Lord Egremont/ Christie’s FIG 3 Lady Elizabeth Percy, Duchess of Somerset (1667– 1722), 1713, Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646/9–1723), oil on canvas, 122 x 99cm, Lord Egremont, on loan to the National Trust at Petworth House, West Sussex Photo: © National Trust Images W , S 1767, Lady Caroline Townshend (1717–94), Baroness Greenwich in her own right, was widowed for the second time, she found herself in a substantially diminished financial position. Much that she had brought into her marriage to Charles Townshend – she had inherited a significant amount – was automatically subsumed into her late husband’s estate. Her sister Lady Mary Coke recorded that Lady Greenwich’s ‘money, the furniture of her two Houses, & all her plate, is no longer her own’.1 Following her marriage, control of her inheritance had passed to her husband – a married woman was not considered a separate legal entity capable of possessing property independently until as late as 1870.2 In spite of this rule, women in Stuart and Georgian Britain proved important patrons of the arts. A clear testament to the role of women as patrons can be seen in collections of silver. Evidence of their activities can be found in both archival sources and in engraved marks of ownership, whether armorial or in other forms, on surviving pieces. The silver associated with Petworth in Sussex is particularly richly recorded. The earliest comprehensive inventory to survive, dated 1617 to 1622, lists the holdings of the ninth Earl of Northumberland (1564–1632), which were prodigious, extending to over 18,000 ounces and 3 including no fewer than 144 silver plates.3 At the time the inventory was drawn up, the silver was in the Tower of London, where the earl was enduring a prolonged yet luxurious imprisonment. What is particularly distinctive about this document is that it provides a comparatively rare example of the plate of a spouse – in this case Lady Dorothy Devereux, Countess of Northumberland (c. 1564– 1619) – being identified separately and not included in any of the calculations of what was possessed by her husband (although had he wished to lay claim to it, the earl could quite legitimately have done so). The countess’s 910½ ounces of silver consisted, like her husband’s set, predominantly of dining plate. The collection included 15 dishes, eight plates, a ewer and a basin, spoons and salts, as well as a standish (inkstand) and a warming pan. Nothing survives of the countess’s plate at Petworth, or that of the ninth earl, but there are two items from later in the 17th century associated with their daughterin-law Lady Elizabeth Howard (d. 1705), second wife of the tenth earl. These represent the earliest London-made silver still possessed by her descendant Lord Egremont, the current occupant of Petworth. They consist of a footed salver, probably of 1676, and a large octagonal caster of 1674 (Fig. 2).4 Thanks to the heraldic symbols they exhibit, they can be said without doubt to have belonged to Elizabeth: the Percy family’s crescent badge is depicted not only beneath an earl’s coronet, signifying her noble rank, but also within a lozenge. During marriage, a woman (reflecting the common-law position that she was not an independent being) could not employ separate armorial bearings to those used by her husband. In an unmarried state or as a widow, however, she was legally and heraldically independent (becoming a feme sole) and thus could use her own arms, albeit shorn of the overtly martial crest and shield, the latter being replaced by a lozenge.5 Sadly, no plate lists or accounts with silversmiths for Lady Elizabeth Howard have yet been identified, but there 2 2
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is abundant archival evidence for patronage of silversmiths by other female collectors. The recently discovered ledger of Thomas Wickes, for instance, covering the years 1673 to 1684, shows that a surprisingly large proportion of his patrons – perhaps as many as half – were female.6 In many instances, they were ordering for a husband or son. This is true of Lucy Luttrell, whose substantial order, dated 15 July 1680, comprised three silver basins, 18 each of spoons, forks and knives, six cups and covers and three sets of snuffers with pans, plus a diamond ring. It was noted as being for ‘ye Honobl Francis Lutterell [her son] att Dunster Castle Somersetshir’.7 Mrs Luttrell and other women who placed orders with Wickes, including the Countess of Clarendon, the Countess of Burlington, the Countess of Thanet and Lady Harriet Hyde (later Countess of Rochester), were clearly in command of the process, and it is likely to have been their tastes that predominated, even if the arms of their husbands or sons were ultimately engraved on them, leading to the assumption that they had been commissioned by a man. The last of the Percys to live at Petworth, Lady Elizabeth Percy (1667–1722), married for the third and final time in 1682 the overbearing and excessively proud Charles Seymour, sixth Duke of Somerset, who, according to the first Earl of Dartmouth, ‘treated her with little gratitude or affection, though he owed all he had, except an empty title, to her’.8 Control of Lady Elizabeth’s great estates may have been held by her successive husbands but she would have had a substantial disposable income in the form of the ‘pin money’ guaranteed under the marriage settlements, and this was augmented from 1702–14 by the salary from her positions at court.9 Her personal bills, which survive largely intact, show her to have commissioned some 14 portraits of herself (Fig. 3),10 which must have been intended, at least in part, to assert her status in society in her own right. The same motivation is likely to have influenced her silver collecting. Between 1679 and her death in 1722, she patronised numerous goldsmiths, including Sir Richard Hoare, Peter and Anne Harache,11 David Willaume I, Henrietta Guichardiere,12 and Pierre Platel.13 Although the Somersets’ principal dining plate and silver furnishings must have been acquired by the duke (albeit with his wife’s money), the duchess accumulated a broad range of articles for herself.14 In addition to plate for dining, she had an ample provision for the bedchamber, for writing, lighting and waiting, for embellishing the 4 fireplace and for the service of tea, coffee and chocolate. In almost every case, she eschewed engraving her husband’s arms on the silver. Instead each piece was clearly marked out as hers by means of her ‘ES’ cipher beneath a duke’s coronet. A bill from Richard Hoare receipted on 5 February 1688/9 includes charges for engraving ‘Characters [initials] and Crowns’ on a covered porringer, a skillet, a dish stand, a salt, a basin and knife hafts.15 The few surviving pieces of plate at Petworth that were certainly the duchess’s – a footed salver of 1688 by Anthony Nelme and a set of 11 dessert forks and a single spoon of 1711 – are all engraved in this way. Indeed, so determined was she to express her identity that she ignored the requirement to display the monarch’s arms on the forks and spoons, which formed part of the 1,000 ounces of plate she received as a perquisite as Queen Anne’s groom of the stole.16 The duchess’s independence of mind appears to have set in very early on, doubtless in response to being used as a pawn in the ruthless matrimonial machinations of her grandmother, who was also her guardian. In March 1681, when just 14 and already a widow following the death of her first husband, Henry Cavendish, Earl of Ogle, she received from Richard Hoare a ‘Japan porringer & Cover’17 weighing 14oz 2dwt and costing £4 12s 10d, plus a further 2s ‘for Ingraving the Arms with A Crown & knot’.18 The porringer does not survive, but four other items with a knot do: a pair of small casters of 1681 and a pair of unmarked footed waiters (Fig. 5), which could be of a comparable date.19 Within the knot on each is the Percy crescent badge (Fig. 4), but, unlike on her grandmother’s pieces, this is not contained within a lozenge. Elizabeth thereby avoided depicting both the late Lord Ogle’s arms and the symbol of widowhood. Sarah Jennings, Duchess of Marlborough (1660–1744), took a different approach. During her long widowhood, she continued to mark new plate with her late husband’s arms and Order of the Garter, as if he were still alive.20 Another of the Duchess of Somerset’s early purchases, from Richard Hoare in December 1680, was a toilet service, consisting of pairs of comb, powder and patch boxes, ‘jessamey’ or perfume pots, covered porringers and water bottles. Along with these came a basin and ewer, four brushes and a silver-framed mirror.21 The fashion for extravagant assemblages such as this had come from France and continued throughout the 18th century. They would be on show at the morning levée, as depicted in FIG 4 Detail of one of a pair of footed waiters [Fig. 5], showing the engraved armorials, probably for Lady Elizabeth Percy, Dowager Countess of Ogle, subsequently Duchess of Somerset Photo: Lord Egremont/ Christie’s FIG 5 Footed waiter (one of a pair), c. 1680, probably London, silver, diam. 28 cm, Lord Egremont, Petworth House, West Sussex Photo: Lord Egremont/ Christie’s 5

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FIG 2 Octagonal sugar caster, 1674–75, unidentified maker’s mark ‘RR’ with an annulet between two pellets beneath, London, silver, ht 19cm, Lord Egremont, Petworth House, West Sussex Photo: Lord Egremont/ Christie’s FIG 3 Lady Elizabeth Percy, Duchess of Somerset (1667– 1722), 1713, Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646/9–1723), oil on canvas, 122 x 99cm, Lord Egremont, on loan to the National Trust at Petworth House, West Sussex Photo: © National Trust Images

W , S 1767, Lady Caroline Townshend (1717–94), Baroness Greenwich in her own right, was widowed for the second time, she found herself in a substantially diminished financial position. Much that she had brought into her marriage to Charles Townshend – she had inherited a significant amount – was automatically subsumed into her late husband’s estate. Her sister Lady Mary Coke recorded that Lady Greenwich’s ‘money, the furniture of her two Houses, & all her plate, is no longer her own’.1 Following her marriage, control of her inheritance had passed to her husband – a married woman was not considered a separate legal entity capable of possessing property independently until as late as 1870.2 In spite of this rule, women in Stuart and Georgian Britain proved important patrons of the arts. A clear testament to the role of women as patrons can be seen in collections of silver. Evidence of their activities can be found in both archival sources and in engraved marks of ownership, whether armorial or in other forms, on surviving pieces.

The silver associated with Petworth in Sussex is particularly richly recorded. The earliest comprehensive inventory to survive, dated 1617 to 1622, lists the holdings of the ninth Earl of Northumberland (1564–1632), which were prodigious, extending to over 18,000 ounces and

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including no fewer than 144 silver plates.3 At the time the inventory was drawn up, the silver was in the Tower of London, where the earl was enduring a prolonged yet luxurious imprisonment. What is particularly distinctive about this document is that it provides a comparatively rare example of the plate of a spouse – in this case Lady Dorothy Devereux, Countess of Northumberland (c. 1564– 1619) – being identified separately and not included in any of the calculations of what was possessed by her husband (although had he wished to lay claim to it, the earl could quite legitimately have done so). The countess’s 910½ ounces of silver consisted, like her husband’s set, predominantly of dining plate. The collection included 15 dishes, eight plates, a ewer and a basin, spoons and salts, as well as a standish (inkstand) and a warming pan.

Nothing survives of the countess’s plate at Petworth, or that of the ninth earl, but there are two items from later in the 17th century associated with their daughterin-law Lady Elizabeth Howard (d. 1705), second wife of the tenth earl. These represent the earliest London-made silver still possessed by her descendant Lord Egremont, the current occupant of Petworth. They consist of a footed salver, probably of 1676, and a large octagonal caster of 1674 (Fig. 2).4 Thanks to the heraldic symbols they exhibit, they can be said without doubt to have belonged to Elizabeth: the Percy family’s crescent badge is depicted not only beneath an earl’s coronet, signifying her noble rank, but also within a lozenge. During marriage, a woman (reflecting the common-law position that she was not an independent being) could not employ separate armorial bearings to those used by her husband. In an unmarried state or as a widow, however, she was legally and heraldically independent (becoming a feme sole) and thus could use her own arms, albeit shorn of the overtly martial crest and shield, the latter being replaced by a lozenge.5

Sadly, no plate lists or accounts with silversmiths for Lady Elizabeth Howard have yet been identified, but there

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