John Robins
English, free 1771; died 1831
Two Bowls
1813/14
These elaborately engraved bowls were made for the wealthy British collector, traveler, and novelist William Beckford, whose massive country house, Fonthill Abbey, was lavishly decorated with paintings, furniture, and silver. These bowls may have been filled with scented water and used by guests at a banquet to rinse their fingers between courses.
| Medium | silver gilt |
| Object Number | 1955.471 |
| Acquisition | Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955 |
| Status | On View |
Image Caption
John Robins, Two Bowls, 1813/14, silver gilt. Clark Art Institute, 1955.471
Select Bibliography
Wees, Beth Carver. "English Silver in an American Museum: The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute." Silver Society Journal 4 (Autumn 1993):115–23. Wees, Beth Carver. English, Irish, and Scottish Silver at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1997. Wees, Beth Carver. "Silver in the Clark Art Institute." The Magazine Antiques 62, no. 4 (October 1997): 536–45. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Twenty-five: Old Silver Bowls and Dishes. Exhibition catalogue. Williamwtown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1964.
Provenance
William Beckford (1760–1844); possibly by descent to Susan Euphemia, duchess of Hamilton; by descent to the dukes of Hamilton, sale Christie's London, 4 November 1919, possibly lot 62;¹ Robert Sterling Clark. 1. . It is conceivable that these bowls were sold at Christies, London, on 4 November 1919 by the duke of Hamilton as lot 62: "Two circular bowls, engraved with panels of flowers, in the Chinese taste, and trelliswork round the borders— 5¾ in. and 4½ in. diam.—1814.16 oz. 16 dwt." That the size of one bowl, the date, and the weight are all incorrect suggests, however, that they are not the present examples. The same bowls appear in the Lansdown inventory of 1844 as part of a group of three slop basins and four sugar basins; see Snodin and Baker, "William Beckford's Silver, II," p. 830, G33. The similar bowl marked by James Aldridge, which sold in the duke of Hamilton's sale as lot 63, is also included in that group.
