Pair Of Silver Warming Dishes, Lille, 1763

-  Pair of warming dishes
-  Hammered, pierced, and cast silver, with blackened wooden feet and handle
-  By François-Joseph Het, master silversmith from 1757 to 1770.
-  Lille (France), 1763-1765
-  Diameter: 16.4 cm (bowl); height: 12 cm; Weight (without handle): 460 g & 479 g
-  Very good condition, slight differences in the handles
-  Provenance: Private collections

-  Pair of warming dishes consisting of a circular bowl decorated with a pierced frieze of grids with fleurons. The three console legs end in a scroll on a blackened wooden base. Each leg is topped with a plate support repeating the scroll of the legs. The grate of the tank is cut with a pierced pattern of long-stemmed tulips, a grate covering an openwork reservoir that promotes the combustion of the embers.

-  The first stove recorded for Lille area with a combustion chamber and openwork grate was made by Adrien Deman in 1702 in Dunkirk [Messiant-Pfister p. 73]. In Lille, from 1720 [Cartier, no. 128, p. 557], stoves rested on console legs with scrolls on wooden runners, and established the general shape of the stove until the end of the century. Only the openwork decoration on the edge of the tank or that of the feet was modified over time: gadroons, fillets, geometric decorations, ovoids, pearls, etc. The stove is an object that is mainly found in the Lille area throughout the 18th century. From this silversmith, we only know stewing spoons (Louvre Museum, Inv. OA 9710) and sprinkling spoons (Laarne Museum, Inv.
-  Hallmarks (bowl support and inner rim of the bowl): master silversmith (on the sleeve): crowned H for Jean-François Het, 1757-1770 [Cartier, T.I p. 321]; warden's mark: V under a crown with three fleurons, small hallmark of Lille, 1763-1765 [Cartier, T.I, p. 225]; recognition (small hallmark): a fleur-de-lis, small recognition of Lille, circa 1760-1767 [Cartier, p. T.I, 225].
- Ref. : Helft, Jacques : "Les poinçons des provinces françaises", 1968 ; Cartier, Nicole : "Les orfèvres de Lille", Vol. I & II, 2004 ; Pfister & Messiant : « Orfèvrerie en Flandre», 1981