Fig. 728.
Figs. 729 to 731.
Besides the “Royal” services—breakfast, dessert, and tea—made for her Majesty, other services have been made for H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, and others of the royal family. From the Prince of Wales’s services the engravings, Figs. [732 to 735] are selected.
Fig. 732.—Ice-Pail: for the Prince of Wales.
Fig. [732] is the ice-pail. The base is formed of three exquisitely modelled mermaids, in Parian, who support the shell-formed base of the vase, around which a group of Tritons and dolphins in high relief are sporting in the water, with an effective background of aquatic plants. A wreath of coral surrounds the rim. The effect of the charming contrast between the dead and the iridescent surfaces is heightened by gilding the conches of the revellers. The cover or lid is as it were the boiling surging sea, from which three sea-horses have partially risen, and in the centre a Triton, riding on a dolphin, forms the handle.
Fig. 733.—Compotier: for the Prince of Wales.
Fig. [733] is a compotier, whose base represents the surface of the sea, upon which float three cardium shells. From between these spring up three small sea-horses, not, indeed, the hippocampi of the naturalist, but those of the mythologist, the figures which, in antique gems and in Italian paintings, are intended to serve as the artistic embodiment of the roll and the dash of the breaker. A trumpet-shell forms the central column, which, in its turn, supports the shell that serves as a fruit-dish.