Master Art

English Market

Price:  £16,500

A rare pair of Chinese export candlesticks of European silver form with octagonal bases, the chimneys with the crest of Sir Richard Chase, Sheriff of Essex, the base with a distinctive cell-pattern border similar to that of the Jephson/Chase service of 1735. 

A rare pair of Chinese export candlesticks of European silver form with octagonal bases, the chimneys with the crest of Sir Richard Chase, Sheriff of Essex, the base with a distinctive cell-pattern border

Crest: a lion rampant sable langued gules holding between the paws a cross patoncé or

These rare candlesticks are from a service that was ordered by Sir Richard Chase (1720-1788) of Much Hadham in Hertfordshire, the son of a wealthy Ironmonger from Gracechurch Street in London, who had bought a large Elizabethan House in Much Hadham called ‘The Lordship’. He also held significant land in Llanddewi in Wales.
A good example of the rise of the merchant classes in the eighteenth century, Sir Richard was Sheriff of Essex in 1744 and Sheriff of Hertfordshire in 1745. He stipulated in his will that he should be buried outside the West window of the church and that the grave merely be covered in turf. The resultant mound is still visible today.
The design of the cell diaper echoes that on the earlier service ordered by his aunt Hannah Chase. The plates in this later service were octagonal rather than hexagonal.
This unusual service was originally believed to have belonged to Judge Samuel Chase, who was a signatory of the American Declaration of Independence. He is known to have owned an armorial service but this has now been shown to be the one in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum in New York and which bears his aunt’s arms (Towneley) which the Judge used for his own.
Many members of the family settled in the US including Aquila Chase, a seventeenth century inhabitant of Newbury, Massachusetts, whose descendant has recently become HRH the Duchess of Sussex,

Porcelain candlesticks are a rare addition in Chinese armorial dinner services, with very few examples recorded, these being large and fine examples of the type.

References: Le Corbeiller 1974, p61, a plate from this service;  Howard 1974, p259, this service; Howard 1994, p95, No 86, a plate; Bullivant Collection, Phillips, March 1988, lot 168, four plates; Cohen & Cohen 2018, No 101, a pair of armorial dinner plates from this service.