A Set of Four Victorian Silver Dessert-Stands by John Samuel Hunt

each on shaped domed circular base, cast with fruiting vines, the vines form feet one three sides, with a fruiting vine cast stem and support for the later circular glass bowls, the stems formed as a figure emblematic of one of the four seasons, spring formed as a seated shepherdess holding foliage and flowers, with a lamb wreathed in a floral garland beside her; summer as a seated man with a goat, holding grapes and with a cornucopia at his feet; autumn as a seated woman with a scythe and holding a flaming touch, a sheaf of wheat on each side and winter as a seated wood-cutter warming his hands at a fire, an axe beside him, the bases each cast as differing rockwork and applied with a coat-of-arms below an earl's coronet 32cm high, the glass bowls 21cm diameter, 307oz 13dwt, 9,600gr (4) The arms are those of Ward, almost certainly for William Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley (1817-1885). Ward was born in March 1817 in Suffolk, the son of William Ward, 10th Baron Ward and his wife Amelia, daughter of William Cooch Pillans. He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford and Trinity College, Oxford, playing first-class cricket for Oxford University Cricket Club between 1838 and 1842. In 1835, he inherited the title of Lord Ward, becoming the 11th Baron Ward, along with Himley Hall and the ruins of Dudley Castle. In 1837 his trustees purchased the Witley Court estate in Worcestershire from Thomas Foley, 4th Baron Foley. During his life he was known to be generous philanthropist, for example paying for the refacing and restoration of Worcester Cathedral; contributing toward the cost of the tower and spire of St John the Baptist's Church at Hagley and acting as a trustee of the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. Ward was to marry twice, first to Selina Constance, daughter of Hubert de Burgh, in 1851. She died on later that same year, and Ward went to marry Georgina Elisabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Moncreiffe, 7th Baronet, in 1865. The couple went on to have six sons and a daughter. Between his marriages he became Earl of Dudley when the earldom which has been held by his kinsman was revived. Ward died in May 1885, at Dudley House, Park Lane, Mayfair, in London. He was initially interred in a marble sarcophagus in the crypt of Saint Michael and All Angels Church in Great Witley, Worcestershire but his remains were later moved to Worcester Cathedral, where a funerary monument to him was erected. The Countess of Dudley survived her husband by over forty years and died in February 1929 at her home at Pembroke Lodge, Richmond Park

Estimate:£30,000

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