These figures were displayed at the International Exhibition of 1862, as noted in the “Catalogue of Works of Art in Silver and Jewelry, exhibited by Hunt and Roskell, late Storr and Mort.mes r, Goldsmiths to Her Majesty. 156 New Bond Street, London W. and 1, St. Anne’s Square, Manchester. Manufactory – 26, Harrison Street, Gray’s Inn Road, London.”
They appear as: LXXIV.
TWO SMALL GROUPS IN SILVER.
Executed for the late Earl de Grey, K.G., & c. – A Hawking Subject, and The Death of the Stag.
Alfred Brown, Del. Et Sculp.
Exhibited by Permission of the Countess Cowper.
Thomas de Grey, 2nd Earl de Grey (1781-1859) was the son of Thomas Robinson, 2nd Baron Grantham; his mother was a daughter of the Earl of Hardwicke. On his father’s death in 1786 he became 3rd Baron Grantham, and 1792 he became heir to a relative, William Weddell of Newby Hall, art collects or and patron of Robert Adam; thus in 1803 he his surname to Weddell.
In 1833 Thomas succeeded his maternal aunt, the 1st Countess de Grey and 5th Baroness Lucas (suo jure), as 2nd Earl de Grey (through a special remainder) and as 6th Baron Lucas, of Crudwell, changing his name again, to “de Grey”. Part of the inheritance was the estate of Wrest Park in Bedfordshire, which he began to remodel in an 18th century French revival style, filling the interior with “old Buhl” furniture and white and gold Rococo Revival decorations. He also rehabilitated the 17th century formal gardens and enhancing them with additional new sculptures, by artists such as Richard James Wyatt.
VIEW OF THE DINING ROOM AT WREST PARK, BY T. SCANDRETT, C. 1850.
Thomas served as Lord Lieutenant of Bedfordshire from 1818 until his death. In 1827 his younger brother Lord Goderich became Prime Minister for a short while, and after that Thomas was more active in government, serving as First Lord of the Admiralty 1834-35 and being made a Privy Counsellor during this t.mes . From 1841 to 1844 he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and was given the Garter on his return. With the founding of the Institute of British Architects in 1834 he became their first president, securing their Royal Charter in 1837 and holding the position until his death, as well as serving on the Commissions for the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament and of Buckingham Palace. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries.
Earl de Grey had married in 1805 Lady Henrietta Cole, a daughter of the Earl of Enniskillen, and they had two daughters. On his death in 1859 the Earldom and Wrest Park passed to his nephew, who later became 1st Marquess of Ripon. His daughters were co-heirs of the rest of his estate, the elder daughter, the widow of Earl Cowper, becoming suo jure Baroness Lucas, and the younger inheriting Newby Hall.
There is a tantalizing link with the offered silver works in the gardens of Wrest Park. A mid 19th century ashlar figural group, “The Hawking Party” (sculptor unknown), remains from the Earl de Grey’s improvements. Other figures were sold or removed from the gardens in the 1930s, so it may have once had a pendant. Lord de Grey’s commission may have been for Hunt & Roskell to reproduce works from his park for use on his table – or he may have been so pleased with Alfred Brown’s small sculptures that he commissioned a larger example for his gardens, and was prevented by death from ordering a full-size pendant.
Hunt & Roskell were the successor firm to that started by Paul Storr in 1819, when he broke with the Royal Goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge and Rundell. By the t.mes of Lord de Grey’s commission in 1854, they were themselves Goldsmiths to Her Majesty, with a particular reputation for large sculptural works and presentation pieces. They had attracted notice for their spectacular display at the 1851 Crystal Palace exhibition, supposedly worth £100,000 or more, and by the following decade would be employing 35 people in New Bond Street and another 80-100 in the factory at Harrison St.
About a quarter of the silver pieces shown by Hunt & Roskell in 1862 were noted in their catalogue as designed and sculpted by Alfred Brown - 25 works in all. Born about 1825 in St. Giles, Cripplegate, he was the son of a brazier, but studied at the Royal Academy schools in the mid-1840s, winning awards in 1844 and 1845. Between 1845 and 1855 he exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, and worked extensively for Hunt & Roskell; he is listed at their factory address from 1847 to 1855. His work for Hunt & Roskell listed in 1862 displayed extensive human and animal figural work, including three candelabra and two groups for the Goldsmiths’ Company, three Goodwood Cups and an Ascot Cup, a group of stags which one review thought was the best piece in the company’s display, and almost a dozen figural and allegorical “Testimonials” for the great, powerful, charitable, and just plain wealthy of mid-Victorian Britain.
Brown was listed as a “moulder” in the census of 1851 but an “artist-sculptor” by 1861. He is still listed as a sculptor in 1871, living in Chelsea, but by 1881 he was listed without a profession and as being of “unsound mind.” John Culme has found him listed in 1891 as a “gentleman” and still of unsound mind, near Kingston-Upon-Thames, Surrey, and it was here that he died in 1893.
The 2nd Earl de Grey died in 1859, and the silver groups passed to his eldest daughter Ann, the widowed Countess Cowper (1806-1880). It was she who loaned them back to Hunt & Roskell for the 1862 exhibition, and it must have been she who received the four smaller groups en suite, on matching bases, in 1861 (see following lot), even if they had been commissioned by her father. However, the Cowper line ended with the death of her son the 7th Earl in 1905, and the later history of these monuments of Victorian silver modeling remains to be discovered.