A teenager at the time I had limited knowledge of antiques but when peering into her skip my eyes alighted on a curious piece of metalwork. It was completely black, with a base, four feet, seven rings - five large and two much smaller ones - and a handle. I had a look underneath to see if it had any marks to indicate it was made of silver but there was no familiar lion passant or leopard's head so it was clearly a worthless piece of electroplate or pewter. It appeared to have my grandfather's family crest engraved on it so I reckoned it was worth taking home anyway along with a cheap, badly chipped painted metal badge of my grandfather's school.
After applying some polish it became clear that there was plenty of silver plate left under the tarnish - in fact there were no signs that the electroplating had worn away. I dont remember how long it was before I looked again at the marks or how long it was before I realised the thistle, castle and other marks meant that this was sterling silver assayed in Edinburgh, and made by Patrick Robertson in 1764. This is what it looks like today.
On doing some research I found that it was the stand for what is known as a "Warwick cruet", that it would have held three silver casters and two silver-capped cut glass bottles, whose tops would have been placed in the two small rings when the cruet was in use. My mother had been given a Georgian caster as a gift many years before and sure enough it matched and fitted one of the rings. Other casters had been given out as gifts to other members of the family it seems so the set had been broken up. Given the kerfuffle surrounding my late uncle's will and other family politics, negotiating the reunification of the casters was out of the question, so there the matter rested until a couple of years ago.
The idea of reconstructing the cruet in something approaching its original form had long been in the back of my mind. With the increasing availability of auction catalogues and dealers stock on line I started doing some searching and soon came across a caster for sale by a London dealer of the same date and the same maker as my mother's. After checking sizes and designs it turned out to be very similar, and although larger, of the right size to fit in the front ring which would normally hold the largest caster.
One more caster and two silver topped bottles and I would be there. My heart leapt a couple of weeks a go when I found just the right pair of bottles coming up at auction.
But then I saw the date of the sale, which had been the previous day. I had missed them and they had sold for an affordable £100. I was so annoyed with myself. But studying the picture stirred a memory. Many years ago I had carefully checked all my mother's glassware collection to see if any bottles would fit and none had. However there was one bottle whose black metal top looked very like those in the auction catalogue. Could this be from one of the missing bottles? Last weekend I had a close look at it. It was unhallmarked but clearly silver and of the right design. The acid test would be whether it fitted the small ring. It did, perfectly. It can be seen in place in the picture with the casters. It must have been kept and refitted to a different bottle after the original had been lost or smashed.
So now what? I am thinking of having the silver bottle top copied and of commissioning a pair of modern reproduction cut glass bottles for them to go on. It will almost certainly be more expensive than hanging on for another old pair to come up at auction, but this feels like a more honest way to proceed and one which preserves more of the original. For the last caster I fear there is no option but to wait until one appears on the market.
As a footnote, my mother's family did not apply for their coat of arms until the 1790s, had not been wealthy earlier in the century nor had any links with Scotland as far as I know. The cruet therefore was probably bought second hand and the crest engraved on it several decades after it had been made.
