George II Silver Presentation Cup and Cover of South Carolina Interest, Thomas Heming, London, dated 1748

Knight, Frank & Rutley, London, 11 July 1913, for £4-14-0 per oz. (totaling £470-14-1, or about £70,000 in 2023 pounds); reported in Auction Sale Prices: Supplement to The Connoisseur, vol. 15 (September 1913), pp. 497-98.

The inscription reads:

The Gentlemen of Port Royal

So: Carolina

Present this Plate to Captn: Hamar

Comdr: of his Majts Ship Adventure. in

Gratefull Acknowledgment of his Services

Done to this Port in ye Year

1748

The Occasion:

During King George’s War (1744-1748, also called the War of Jenkins’ Ear), French and Spanish privateers attacked coastal shipping and the exposed harbors of South Carolina and Georgia. In 1745 Governor James Glen of South Carolina wrote to the Duke of Newcastle observing of the Port Royal Sound that, “two forty-gun ships-of-war stationed there would prove a great security to the whole province, it would draw people there to settle… and thus strengthen the frontier.” In 1747, the HMS Adventure was sent to Port Royal; although it had lost its mast in a hurricane, it still had its forty-four guns, making it a floating fortress.

The captain of the Adventure was Joseph Hamar (c. 1712-1773). He entered the Royal Navy in 1727, passed the Lieutenant’s Examination in 1733/34 and achieved the rank in 1735. In 1740 he was named Commander of the Royal Escape, and in 1741 Captain and Commanding officer of the 20-gun Flamborough. It was with that ship that Hamar took part in the Battle of Bloody Marsh, July 1742, on St. Simon’s Island, Georgia, against a Spanish invasion force; the British victory confirmed their control of the sea islands and their inland waterways. After a brief spell on the 20-gun Deal Castle in 1746, Hamar was named Captain and Commanding officer of the Adventure later that same year, and took her to Port Royal in 1747. The British National Archives at Kew has a letter from Captain Hamar, dated 18 May 1748, with a “Map of the entrance to Port Royal Harbour, showing soundings, currents, anchorages, and trees and buildings in relief. Reference tables and notes on tides and composition of the sea bed” (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4047631 ).

In the spring of 1748, a “pilot and decoy” for the famous French privateer Captain Bernard, operating out of St. Augustine, escaped from Charleston jail by burning it down. Now worried about land attacks as well as harassment at sea, the “gentlemen and landowners” of St. Helena and Prince William parishes requested additional protection. The 20-gun brig HMS Rye joined the now-repaired Adventure, and in August the two ships sailed out in response to sighted enemy vessels, capturing an armed Spanish ship, and retaking a schooner which had been seized by privateers in 1747. The presence of the ships also stimulated the local economy, with sailors spending money in the towns, local planters supplying the ships, and local craftsmen making the repairs. Two new streets were laid out in west Beaufort, named “Adventure” and “Hamar”. 

The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in October, 1748 ended King George’s War and the Anglo-Spanish dispute over Georgia.  The stability and economic benefits brought by the Royal Navy ships helped establish Beaufort and Port Royal as centers for commercial shipping, and were recognized by the local “gentlemen” with this impressive gift to the captain of the Adventure. Hamar left that ship in 1749, and served briefly as Captain of the 60-gun Eagle in 1755. He retired from service in 1758 and died in 1773, before the revolution of the Colonies in which he had served.

(Drawn largely from The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina, 1514-1861, by Lawrence S. Rowland, Alexander Moore, and George C. Rogers, Jr., University of South Carolina Press, 2020, pp. 151-53.)

The Silver Cup:

This impressive cup and cover is among the earliest and most sophisticated examples of rococo silver which can be linked to the American Colonies. Among the few comparable items are a pair of dragon-handled sauce boats, attributed to Frederick Kandler, which were owned by William Middleton of South Carolina in the late 1740s (Philadelphia Museum), and the Franks family silver, mostly by Paul de Lamerie, supplied to that family in Philadelphia in the mid 1740s (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

Thomas Heming began his apprenticeship in London in 1738, training under Peter Archambo. He entered his mark as largeworker in June 1745, with an address in Piccadilly – in the center of fashionable and affluent London. This piece represents his very early work, well before he was named Principal Goldsmith to King George III in 1760.

A 1750 Heming cup of this shape, with the same foot and finial and also covered with applied grapevine, was sold Sotheby’s, London, 19 November 1970, lot 159 (see Vanessa Brett, The Sotheby’s Directory of Silver, 1600-1940, no. 980, p. 22). However, the distinctive feature of this cup is the highly sculptural handles. The scrolls morphing into Bacchanalian figures derive from the handles on the monumental Jerningham wine cistern of 1734-35, modeled by sculptor John Michael Rysbrack and executed by silversmith Charles Frederick Kandler (now in the Hermitage Museum). Not surprisingly, Kandler “shrank” the handles for use on other pieces, such as a cup and cover of 1736-37 in the Holbourne Museum, Bath. He refined the figural handles, and used in conjunction with applied grapevine, by 1749, the date of an opulent cup and cover in the St. Louis Art Museum (https://www.slam.org/collection/objects/630/ ).

Newly starting out, Heming may have had access to casts of Kandler’s figures, or a sculptor who could make them. He then kept versions of the handles in his workshop for use on other pieces, such as a gilt cup and cover of 1758 with the cypher of Queen Charlotte (sold Christie’s, New York, June 21, 2012, lot 1125). He even included a cup and cover of this model on his 1760s trade card, after being named Goldsmith to the King. That example has a putto finial similar to Kandler’s cup in the St. Louis Museum, further suggesting that the enterprising young Heming pirated Kandler’s successful model to use on the South Carolina cup.

Heming probably bent the rules in another manner with this piece. The lack of a mark on the cover, and the fact that the base has two maker’s marks and no date letter, strongly suggests that this cup is a “duty dodger” – a common practice in the period to avoid paying tax. The duty payable on newly manufactured silver was 6 pence per ounce, approximately 10%. This was paid when the piece was taken to the Goldsmiths’ Hall and struck with the hallmarks. Enterprising silversmiths realized that they could cut older marks out of a smaller or damaged piece of silver and mount them to a new, larger piece, thereby avoiding paying the duty and saving themselves a significant cost, as well as the time and effort required taking pieces in to be assayed and marked at the Hall. This was very widespread – a recent book on the Assay Office suggests it was “openly practiced” – and since it was not specifically classed as an offence it was likely difficult to prosecute. It must have been particularly tempting on pieces destined for export, which would soon be out of the reach of the Goldsmiths’ Hall. Here, Heming probably used a marked base panel from a smaller piece, such as a cann or caster, overstruck with his own mark any older date letter or other maker’s mark, and sent the piece on to his clients at a discount. Further information on “duty -dodgers” may be found in J. S. Forbes, Hallmark, A History of the London Assay Office, 1999, pp.183-192. An illustration on page 90 shows a two-handle cup with double bottom, revealed by removal of the foot.