Strauss & co - 16 October 2017, Cape Town

89 243 A Victorian/Edwardian five-piece silver ‘Cellini’ pattern tea and coffee presentation service, Mappin &Webb Ltd, London, 1897-1909 comprising; a kettle-on-stand and burner, a coffee pot, a hot water pot, a two-handled sugar bowl and a milk jug, each ornately embossed with panels of masks in cartouches, goats and foliate scroll decoration, with caryatid handles, on domed stepped circular footrims, the base engraved ‘MAPPIN & WEBB, LONDON’, the two-handled sugar bowl engraved ‘SHEFFIELD & JOHANNESBURG, MAPPIN & WEBB, LONDON’ the kettle-on-stand 40cm high, 4525g all in (5) R –  244 A George V silver two-handled presentation tray, Mappin &Webb, Sheffield, 1915 oval, the centre engraved with the initials ‘JCS’, the cavetto with a gadrooned border and reeded rim, applied with leaf and reeded handles, the reverse inscribed ‘PRESENTED TO L.T GENERAL THE RT. HON. J.C. SMUTS P.C. BY THE CITIZENS OF JOHANNESBURG, AUGUST 13, 1919’, 74cmwide over handles, 4245g R –  PROVENANCE This silver tea and coffee service, together with the tray in the following lot, were used for tea at Doornkloof, home of General and Mrs Smuts, during the Royal Visit in 1947 of King George VI, his wife Queen Elizabeth and his two daughters, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret when they were reunited with their cousins, the exiled Prince Paul and Princess Frederica Louise of Greece. On Issie Smuts’death in 2002, this service and tray were inherited by the current owner. 244