A George I silver soup tureen, Thomas Farren, London, 1726

The Scottish family of Masterston of Parkmilne and Gogar, Perthshire,

with S.J. Phillips, London 1988

Christopher Hartop, The Huguenot Legacy, English silver 1680-1760 from the Alan and Simone Hartman Collection, London 1996, p. 113

Exhibition catalogue, Paul de Lamerie, The work of England’s Master Silversmith, Goldsmith’s Hall, 16 May-22 June 1990, p. 84

Michael Clayton, The Collector’s Dictionary of the Silver and Gold of Great Britain and North America, London, 1971

The arms, crest and motto are those of Masterton of Parkmilne and Gogar, Perthshire.

This is the earliest English circular soup tureen on record, and can be compared to only a small number of other important examples. All made in the same régence style with applied strapwork, the earliest version was hallmarked in 1723 and ordered by Wriothesley Russel, 3^rd Duke of Bedford, from Paul de Lamerie.¹ Three other soup tureens from 1726 have survived: the present example, the only one which is circular, and an oval pair, ordered from Simon Pantin, and made as an official gift to Philip Dormer, 4^th Earl of Chesterfield on his appointment as Ambassador to The Hague. One more exists from around 1726, but as this was illegally hallmarked to avoid duty, it is undateable. It was probably ordered by Empress Catherine I for the Winter Palace and delivered to Russia in August 1726 and is now in the Hermitage museum.

Influenced by French models, the tureen exemplifies the most modern, courtly style of the period, favoured by a few leading English figures. Its original owner is unknown, but it follows that such a monument to fashionable taste must have belonged to a prominent member of society, such as the King, a Duke or an Ambassador of the stature of the Earl of Chesterfield.

Between 1723 and 1742, Thomas Farren was subordinate goldsmith to the King, one of the suppliers to the office of state, normally headed by a banker, which dealt with the gold, silver and jewellery requirements of the Monarch. Farren was associated with an important group of men involved with the silver trade as goldsmith bankers, subordinate goldsmiths to the King and Prime Wardens of the Goldsmiths’ Company who lived in the same street just off Lombard Street in the City near the Bank of England.

These associates included John Edwards, whose sponsored work is often similar to that of Farren, and William Denny, both subordinate goldsmiths; John Bache and John Ruslen, both prime wardens of the Goldsmiths' Company, and Thomas Folkingham who together with Ruslen witnessed Farren’s freedom to work in the City. All except Bache to whom Folkingham was apprenticed, lived next to each other in St Swithin’s lane. It is not clear what precise roles these men had in the workings of the trade except that they were successful facilitators who dealt with the most important members of society. When he died in 1729, Folkingham left a then massive estate of £30,000, provoking Arthur Grimwade, historian of the trade to comment ‘...it is fairly clear that in Folkingham we have a banker goldsmith of considerable status’. 

¹ Another pair of tureens, Paul de Lamerie, 1723, but with major later rococo elements, is in the Gilbert Collection (LOAN:GILBERT.723:1 to 3-2008 & LOAN:GILBERT.722:1 to 3-2008).