A mid-19th century French 950 standard silver and gold mounted four-piece bachelor tea and coffee service, Paris circa 1860 by Maurice Mayer (reg. 19 Aug 1846)

A mid-19th century French 950 standard silver and gold mounted four-piece bachelor tea and coffee service, Paris circa 1860 by Maurice Mayer (reg. 19 Aug 1846)

Comprising a coffee pot, a teapot, a milk jug, a covered twin handled sugar bowl. Each of compressed circular form upon a slightly domed foot. The pots with loop handles fitted with ivory insulators pinned to sockets opposite curved spout and with hinged domed lids surmounted by chased square section and fluted finials. The sugar bowl with a pull off lid surmounted the same. The milk and sugar with gilt interiors. The teapot and sugar bowl applied either side and the milk jug and coffee pot once with an applied unmarked two-colour gold cypher SB below a coronet for a French Marquis. Each marked underneath Mce Mayer, Orfèvre de L'Empereur, A Paris, with assay markd to body, footrim and lids. (4)

Coffee pot height – 20 cm / 7.9 inches

Teapot length – 19.8 cm / 7.75 inches

Weight – 1284 grams / 41.28 ozt

The initials with coronet may possibly refer to the Marquis Saint-Brisson (est. 1654, extinct 1965)

Provenance: Latterly owned by Victor A. Adda (Alexandria 1885-Rome 1965) who took over the family cotton trading business and formed an important collection of coins and antiquities. Thence by descent.

By family repute this set was owned by Isma'il Pasha (1830-1895), Khedive of Egypt and conqueror of Sudan from 1863 to 1879. The connection between the heraldic initials and the Khedive has not been found.

Maurice Mayer (1801-1864) was a celebrated nineteenth century silversmith and jeweller. The Mayer house was founded in Paris in 1839, and his maker’s mark registered in 1846. In 1853, he received the prestigious appointment of Fournisseur de l’Empereur, to the Emperor Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon III, r.1852-1870). At the time Mayer was working in Paris where Orientalism was an established element of fashionable French taste where the impact of the Ottoman world is felt among French decorative arts. Mayer is known to have produced silverwares inspired by Ottoman decorative techniques as well as significant pieces of Judaica.