Bronze Age Gold from Wales

Scent bottle, stopper and stand; the bottle blue glass, square with cut corners and facetted shoulders, short neck, cut rim, and spade-shaped stopper, gilt decoration comprising chinese pheasants in a landscape on two sides and a flower spray on two sides, cut corners with on all over trellis and dot pattern, facetted corners and stopper with repeating pattern leaves and circles within dots. Stand, yellow silver gilt, square bombe shape with canted corners, flat base, raised on eight scroll feet, each side cast and chased with a pierced panel comprising a shell and flower trail within C-scrolls, divided by matted acanthus, up-curving knurled rim, the underside engraved with a plain shield bearing the arms of Williams-Wynn impaling Somerset.

This spectacular toilet service was given as a gift by Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn’s mother to her new daughter-in-law, Henrietta Somerset, in 1768. Silver toilet services, comprising a mirror, candlesticks and boxes for jewellery and patches, became a symbol of rank and high status from the 1660s. They were displayed on dressing tables with rich lace covers. Thomas Heming was principal goldsmith to the King, and this service is similar to the one he had made two years earlier for the Queen of Denmark.