Silver Table Warmer By Philippe Lamothe, Dunkirk, 1775

- A Table warmer
- Hammered, pierced, cast silver, feet and handle in blackened wood
- By Philippe Lamotte, master goldsmith before 1758 until 1799.
- Dunkirk, 1774-1775
- Diameter (bowl): 16.5cm; height: 13.5 cm; total length: 30 cm; weight (without handle): 576g
- Superb condition
- Provenance: private collection

- Stove consisting of a bowl with large ogees alternating with small ogees with pinched ribs. The bowl is decorated with a pierced frieze of fleurs-de-lys with scrolls, alternating with jagged shells with fleurons. The three feet formed of molded double-volute balusters enclosing a cartouche with fleurons, end with gadrooned scrolls on a wooden skate. In the extension of the balusters, three dish supports take up the gadrooned decoration of the feet. The grid of the tank taking up its cut is decorated with a pierced decoration of tulips with long stems alternating with tears, grid covering an openwork tank promoting combustion.

- The first stove listed for the Generality of Lille with combustion chamber and openwork grid is manufactured by Adrien Deman in 1702 [Messiant-Pfister p.73]. In Lille, from 1720 [Cartier, n°128, p.557] the stoves rest on wooden feet, and fix until the end of the century the general shape of the stove in the generality. Only the openwork decoration or that of the feet are modified over time: gadroons, fillets, geometric decorations, oves, pearls… We know of few Dunkirk stoves, a stove from our goldsmith is listed that is almost identical, distinguished from our model by the different pierced bowl.
- Hallmarks (in the bowl and support): master goldsmith: PL//M crowned (large hallmark), for Philippe Lamotte [Messiant-Pfister, p.83]; jurande: P under a clawed crown, Dunkirk, 1774-1775 [Messiant-Pfister, p.60]; recognition of Dunkirk: Dolphin surmounted by a clawed crown, around 1770-1783 [Messiant-Pfister, p.63].
- Ref.: Helft, Jacques: "Les poinçons des provinces françaises", 1968; Cartier, Nicole: "Les orfèvres de Lille", Vol. I & II, 2004; Messiant-Pfister: "Orfèvrererie des Flandres, Bergues-Dunkirk- 17è-19è siècles", exhibition from December 4, 1980 to February 15, 1981, Museum of Fine Arts of Dunkirk, 1981.