Essex Jewelry and Antiques

Impressive Pair Old Sheffield Fused Silverplate Wine Cooler Champagne Buckets

$3,807.00

Presented is a superb quality pair of old English Sheffield fused silver plate wine or champagne cooling buckets, dating to circa 1790-1820. The buckets are made in a handsome classical double handle form, adorned with an appropriate motif of grape clusters, vines and leaves around the mouth and base, and branch form handles extending into a near-continuous band of oak leaf and acorn design around the body, all extraordinarily crisp and detailed. The coolers disassemble as you'd expect and as the photos show, with a tinned interior bucket to hold the wine bottle/ice. The coolers are made with a heavy silver plating on copper, with the thick gauge silver folded over the edges exactly as you'd like to see in old Sheffield fused plate pieces. The front of each cooler has an invisibly inset sterling silver plaque finely engraved with a crest of a demi lion rampant regardant holding a boar's head, with the Latin motto 'Pro Libertate Patriae' or 'For the freedom of the fatherland.” This crest and motto have both been associated with the Evans and Massey/Massy family names seperately but never together that I could find, curiously enough.

The wine coolers are both in great overall condition. One has a little patch of roughness to one handle, which is hard to notice without careful inspection. The inside bottom of one of the interior liners has some discoloration. The silver plating is in great shape with the only truly visible bleed-through being shelf wear on the underside of the foot. There are no breaks and no repairs.

Each wine cooler stands about 11 inches tall and measures about 9 inches in diameter.

The total weight for the pair is 18.06 pounds or 8.2 kilograms. -jm