Set of Twelve George II Sterling Silver Service Plates

hallmarked London, 1741-1742, by George Wickes, each with a serpentine-lobed gadrooned edge, engraved on the rim with the drapery-mantled arms of Baronet Harpur of Calke Abbey, Derbyshire impaling Manners, Duke of Rutland.
dia. 9-1/2"; 225.29 total t. oz.

Notes: The arms here are those of Sir Henry Harpur, 5th Baronet (1708-1748), the son of Sir John Harper, 4th Bt. and Catherine Crew, and his wife Lady Caroline Manners (d. 1769), the daughter of John Manners, 2nd Duke of Rutland and Lucy Sherard. The couple were married on October 2, 1734.

**The set exhibits the signs of extensive use over the centuries in the form of a network of utensil scratches covering the plateaux and extending onto the rims, with some scattered dings and scuffs. No breaks, dents or repairs noted. One plate does have a short 1/2" original reinforcement of a minor annealing flaw on the underside edge of one plate. Crisp, well-engraved and -hatched armorials. The undersides appropriately worn. Each piece hallmarked (on the underside) with: 1) the sterling lion passant; 2) the London crowned leopard's head; 3) the date letter "f" for 1741-1742; and 4) the crowned "GW" maker's mark of George Wickes. Marks very good and clean. The undersides additionally inscribed with the original household inventory numbers and scratch weights and (much more faintly) with a later inventory number.

11 x 11 x 11 in