A Very Rare Victorian Parcel-Gilt Silver And Enamel Three-Piece Tea Service With Shakespeare Scenes, Charles Edwards, London, 1883

Sotheby's, Geneva, 12 November 1980, lot 98

Peter Zervudachi collection, sold

Sotheby's, London, 10 June 1998, lot 601

The enameled scenes and figures on this tea service are after illustrations by Sir John Gilbert RA (1817-1897) which were created for the 1866 edition of Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare, intended ‘for the use of young persons.’

The presence of scenes from a Shakespeare play on a tea service, together with the large cartouches for engraved inscriptions on the opposite sides of the three pieces would suggest it was intended for an actor or the owner of a theatre. There is, however, no inscription and no sign of one having been removed; this, combined with the relative obscurity of Timon of Athens (nothing similar with scenes from other plays is known), has resulted in a mystery over why the set was made and for whom.

Timon of Athens is Shakespeare’s least familiar play. Indeed, there was no mainstream revival of it in London between 1856 at Sadler’s Wells, when Samuel Phelps (1804-1878) assumed the title role, and 1904 when J.H. Leigh (1859-1934) played Timon at the Court Theatre for just 13 performances. The tragedy was, however, included in the repertoire of the largely touring English actor/manager, Charles Dillon (1819-1881), when he gave a number of performances of it during May 1867 at the Theatre Royal, Birmingham, and it was staged by F. R. Benson at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1892.

Charles Edwards (Charles Edward Edwards) was born in the Shoreditch area of London about 1839, one of the children of Thomas Edwards (1809-1887), a silver chaser, and his wife, Mary Ann (née Gresham, b. 1805). Described as a silver chaser, he was married at St. Mary le Strand on 2 March 1861 to Lucy Ann, daughter of Frederick Stephenson, a printer. Edwards was long established as a working silversmith in Northampton Square in London’s manufacturing district of Clerkenwell. Although Edwards died in retirement on 10 August 1921, the business had been taken over by Charles Albert Eldridge (1889-1968).