A Rare Victorian Silver-Mounted "Harpy" Claret Jug, Alexander Crichton, London, 1882

This shape follows classical pottery models of a "siren" jug, and reflects the "Grecian" tastes of the mid 19th century. The form is known from Greek and Etruscan examples; one with incised crossed arms, probably the prototype for the Victorian versions, is in the collection of the British Museum and is dated to Crete, 600 B.C.E. An 1877 "harpy" milk jug by James Barclay Hennell for Edwin W. Streeter (retailer, New Bond Street) is illustrated in John Culme, Nineteenth Century Silver, p. 181. A fully silver jug by Aldwinkle & Slater, London, 1882, was sold Sotheby's, New York, October 17, 2008, lot 146, and an unusual example with a Doulton Lambeth stoneware body, the silver head marked by Alexander Crichton, was sold Lion and Unicorn Auctions, April 20, 2021, lot 322.

Alexander Crichton

The Father of figural claret jugs is Alexander Crichton, who almost single-handedly launched the craze in the early 1880s. John Culme has found a first mention of Crichton in 1870, when he entered an embossed up into the Society of Arts Exhibition, an early testament to his skills. He entered marks by himself in 1872 and 1875, and an early production was retailed by Hamilton, Crichton & Co. of Edinburg, suggesting a possible family connection. A pair of silver-gilt shields of 1878 depicted “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, after designs by Sir Noel Paton, showing his engagement with the fantastic.

In 1880 he went into partnership with Charles John Curry, who hailed from a family of silversmiths and spent seven years apprenticeship as a modeler and chaser with Edward Barnard & Sons. Describing themselves as designers, modelers, and silversmiths, they are recorded as “Crichton & Curry”, 45 Rathbone Place, off Oxford Street, on October 14. 1880. Less than a year later registered their first figural design, an owl-form jug, on August 16, 1881. This was followed in quick succession by the Walrus on September 22, the Duck and the Drake on October 1, and the Parrot on December 3, all of 1881.

Several of the figural claret jugs of the following year, 1882, bear Crichton’s maker’s mark but the retailers mark of Henry Lewis, of 172 New Bond Street. The new registered designs of 1882 were done in Lewis’ name as well, the Dodo of February 1, the Carp of February 18, and the Otter of March 7^th, but the known examples all have the maker’s mark of Alexander Crichton.

Crichton & Curry would register two more designs for figural jugs, the Penguin of April 26, 1882, and the Cockatoo of December 19; perhaps this change represents a falling out with Henry Lewis. However, losing their primary wholesale purchaser would have been risky in the depressed economy of the early 1880s, and by 1882 other firms had jumped onto the bandwagon of figural jugs, causing competition in the novelty market. Crichton would create a bear-form honeypot to the designs of sculptor Sir Joseph Boehm in 1883, to be given as a gift to the Royal Academy, but the partnership was dissolved by October 1884, and Crichton declared bankruptcy in December 1886, with debts of £1,846. However short-lived his business, Alexander Crichton left a legacy of creativity and craftsmanship that has far outlived him.