26
Admiral Lord Nelson’s Birthday Service, 1798
The comport: Height: 4in (10cm) Width: 12 ¼ in (32cm) Depth: 8in (20cm) The plates: Diameter: 8in (20cm)
This outstanding dinner service was a gift to Admiral Lord Nelson from Sir William and Lady Hamilton. It is of English, probably Coalport, manufacture decorated in Naples for Nelson’s 40th birthday on 29 September 1798. Each of the twenty-seven pieces is painted in the centre, after designs by Baron de Fages Vaumale (see page 29), with a fouled anchor between palm branches surmounted by a naval coronet and initials HN, the border further painted with trailing oak leaves and with occasional sepia panels depicting views of Alexandria, Aboukir Bay and other Mediterranean scenes, probably after sketches by Cooper Willyams (see page 31). Some of the dishes are painted on the reverse with a black initial H or gilt M. Comprising: a shaped oval footed bowl or comport a sauce tureen, cover and stand four shaped oval dishes four shell-shaped dishes three octagonal dessert plates fourteen circular dessert plates
Provenance: 1798: Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson (1758-1805) 1802: By gift to his sister, Catherine Matcham (17671842) (‘my thanks for the very elegant sett of china’) By direct family descent until sold in The Matcham Collection, Sotheby’s London 5 October 2005, Lot 32, ‘The Matcham Service’. Exhibited: On loan at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich until 2005. Literature: Rina Prentice, The Authentic Nelson (2005), p.144 as ‘The Matcham Set’.
