Selected Silver and Objects of Vertu

A large Victorian silver model of a cockatoo,
by James Charles Edington, London 1858,


realistically modelled, the bird seated on a branch, raised on a rocky and foliate decorated base, with hinged head, numbered to base ‘2165 C’, base loaded, height 36cm.
£3,000-£4,000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Menagerie of Silver, the Property of a Gentleman.

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Collection

James Charles Edington was a London silversmith, based in Berwick Street, Soho. He was initially apprenticed to William Ker Reid and on 6 February 1828 had entered his first silver mark. He is listed as a working silversmith at 23 Leicester Square from about 1837-1862, and then as a manufacturing silversmith from 1863-1873. The firm continued trading in his name, although Edington appears to have retired, died or possibly gone into partnership around 1869 with Henry Stokes, when Stokes registered his own mark at the Leicester Square premises at that date.

The firm’s heyday was the 1830s and 1840s, when Edington was the chief manufacturer for Green Ward & Green of Cockspur Street, prestigious retail goldsmiths and jewellers.