Finely carved throughout with flowers and leaves. With a silver carrying handle, hinges and lock escutcheon. Raised on silver claw and ball feet. Containing three original chinoiserie repousse silver tea caddies with lids. The interior retaining its original red velvet lining. With key. With the hallmarks: S. Herbert & Co., London, 1760-1.

This tea casket demonstrates the collaborative nature of the ‘China Trade’ items made for export – with the fretted and carved mother of pearl casket having been made in China and then sent to England where a London silversmith made the silver canisters, decorating them with ‘Chinoiserie’ scenes.

Samuel Herbert & Company: Samuel Herbert (active 1747–73) was a London silversmith, who was apprenticed to Edward Aldridge I of the Clothworkers Company, and goldsmith of Gutter Lane in 1736. He was made ‘free’ in 1744, at which time he had served his term as an apprentice and was able to become a Freeman of the Livery Company at which he was apprenticed. His 1st ‘mark’ was entered in 1747, and his 2nd mark as Samuel Herbert & Co was registered in 1750, with the initials ‘SH.HB’. This unnamed partnership was likely to have been with Henry Bailey, who had also been apprenticed to Edward Aldridge. In 1763, Herbert took on Burrage Davenport as his apprentice. Herbert’s workshop specialised in pierced platework.

A silver dish cross by Samuel Herbert, made in 1764–65, is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Accession Number: 13.41.62. A similar fretwork pattern has been used in the production of this dish cross.

In the 1700s, tea-drinking was a ceremony in England. Tea was an expensive commodity, as were the accoutrements relating to its consumption. As tea drinking was very expensive, it required proper storage in order to ensure its preservation. To keep them safe, the valuable tea leaves would be stored in a tea chest or a tea box which was normally kept locked. In ‘Tea & Taste: The Visual Language of Tea’, Tania M. Buckrell Pos notes that: ‘[in] the second half of the eighteenth century… tea caddies became furnishings in their own right’ (Schiffer Publishing, 2004, p.129). Buckrell Pos remarks that the British traded silver bullion in place of minted currency: ‘Silver was one of the few items the English could offer to the Chinese in great quantities in exchange for desirable commodities such as tea and porcelain’ (ibid, p.85). In the early days of tea drinking, she observes that: ‘to evoke the exoticism of taking the Chinese beverage, it was desirable to surround oneself with works of decorative art directly imported from China or created in England in the manner of the Chinese, known as chinoiserie’ (ibid, p.96). Chinese fretwork patterns were an important element of eighteenth century chinoiserie decoration, found on garden buildings and furniture as well as, in this instance, on silver.

A similar Chinese export silver-mounted mother-of-pearl tea caddy can be found in Edward Lennox-Boyd’s ‘Masterpieces of English Furniture: The Gerstenfeld Collection’ (Christie’s, London, 1998), p.251, fig.117. This tea caddy is smaller, but also includes three tea caddies inside. It is also hallmarked for London, made slightly later in circa 1810.