A PAIR OF GEORGE III SILVER WINE COOLERS, JOHN SCOFIELD, LONDON, 1790

The arms are those of Smythe quartering the quarterly arms of Leighton and Owen impaling Townsend quartering Hare for Nicholas Owen Smythe Owen (1769-1804) of Condover Hall, Shropshire. He married at All Hallows, Tottenham, on 12 July 1790, Henrietta Jemima, daughter of James Townsend (1737-1787) of Bruce Castle, Tottenham, and his wife Henrietta (née Hare, 1745-1785).

The Owen family of Condover, Shropshire, extinct in the male line, descended from Richard ap Owen, third son of Owen ap Griffith of Llunllo. Thomas Owen of Concover, the last male descendant of this line, died unmarried in 1731, leaving his sister, Letitia Owen (d. 1755), his heir. She married Richard Mytton, and had a daughter, Anna Maria (1719-1750), who was the first wife of Sir Charlton Leighton, 3rd Bt (1715-1780) of Loton. One of their children, also Anna Maria (d. 1777), inherited from her grandmother, the said Letitia Owen, the estate of Condover. This Anna Maria Mytton married Nicholas Smythe. Their eldest son was the above-mentioned Nicholas Owen Smythe Owen (formerly Smythe) upon whose death without issue in 1804 Condover passed to his eldest sister’s son, Edward William Pemberton (1793-1863) who then changed his name to Edward William Smythe Owen.

For another, identical pair of silver coolers, also John Scofield, London, 1790, applied with the same arms (but incorrectly read as Smith quartering Perrot and Owen, impaling Townsend quartering Hare), see Sotheby's, London, 18 July 1974, lot 87.

For a pair of silver two-light blackamoor pattern candelabra, Benjamin Godfrey, London, 1739, engraved with the same arms, see Sotheby’s, London, 6 July 2016, lot 20.