1779 George III English Sterling Silver Cream Pourer – London Hallmarks, TL Monogram (Auction 2026-06-05, Lot 262)

$1,028.00

A graceful sterling silver cream pourer rising from a stepped circular foot, its baluster body swelling into a high, narrow neck before flaring into a generous lipped spout. A delicate band of beading traces the rim of the pour, descends the elegant scrolled handle, and wreaths the foot in a single repeated grammar of ornament, lending rhythm to an otherwise unembellished surface that catches and folds light along its polished curves. The form belongs to the neoclassical idiom that swept English silver in the 1770s, when Adam-period taste favored slender ewer profiles drawn from antique prototypes over the rococo exuberance of the preceding decades. Beneath the spout, an engraved monogram pairs the initials M and a conjoined TL, perhaps a marriage cipher or a presentation mark linking two families at the moment of the piece’s commissioning. The underside carries the full London assay: a lion passant guaranteeing sterling standard, the crowned leopard’s head of the London office, and a lowercase d within its cartouche fixing the date letter to 1779, the nineteenth year of George III’s reign. Analysis confirms a silver content of 92.98 percent, comfortably above the sterling threshold. Such cream pourers accompanied the tea services that anchored Georgian sociability, small luxuries through which a household’s polish was measured one pour at a time.

Provenance: private Loveland, Colorado, USA collection, acquired April 5, 2002 at Antiques at 115 Broadway, San Antonio, Texas, USA

Condition: Excellent. Some rubbing to hallmarks and patina in areas, but, otherwise, intact and excellent.