Lot 2 | A PAIR OF GEORGE II SILVER-MOUNTED SHAGREEN KNIFE-BOXES
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The mounts by John Carman II Each with bowed front and hinged lid centred by a handle with foliate-cast backplate, enclosing a crimson velvet-lined interior, the side with carrying-handles, on paw feet, the foliate-cast lock engraved with rockwork and strapwork, the lock with a crest of a gauntleted arm entwined with a clasped snake emerging from a ducal coronet, on paw feet 15 in. (38 cm.) high; 9 in. (23 cm.) wide; 81/2 in. (21.5 cm.) deep (2) NOTES John Carman was admitted to the freedom of the Cutler's Company in 1743 and died in 1765. He would presumably have also made the original cutlery fitted in the boxes. The crest is not recorded in Fairbairn's Book of Crests of the Familes of Great Britain and Ireland, London, 1905. The celebrated shagreen casemaker Woodstreet illustrated a similar 'Knife Case... mounted in silver' on the trade card that he issued in the 1750s. He stated that he made 'all sorts of Shagreen... and Fish Skin' knife-cases, which included a variety of 'Fish Skin of different sorts' including 'Blue or Green Dog[fish] skin' (A. Heal, The London Furniture Makers, London, 1953, p. 56).
