Edwardian wine cistern marked for Garrard & Co, estimated $100,000-150,000 at Heritage Auctions.
The exuberant design, featuring a Bacchanale scene in high relief and the British royal coat of arms front and back recalls the work of sculptor Edmund Cotterill (1794-1860), the head of Garrard’s design department in its Victorian pomp.
Although evidently an important, aristocratic commission or diplomatic gift, the cistern’s early history is unknown. It is first recorded on American soil in the 1950s when it was used for a horse-racing trophy in Detroit (a plaque to the wood pedestal reads The Michigan Mile September 21, 1957, won by My Night Out, owner DH Wells) and later displayed at the Churchill Downs racing complex in Kentucky.
The cistern comes for sale as the headline lot in Heritage’s Fine Silver & Objects of Vertu Auction in Dallas, Texas, on May 16.
Estimate $100,000-150,000.
