George Wickes

Bapt Bury St Edmunds, 7 July 1698; died Thurston, Suffolk, 31 Aug 1761.

English goldsmith. In 1712 he was apprenticed to the goldsmith Samuel Wastell, and in 1720 he gained the freedom of the Goldsmiths’ Company, London. He registered his first marks in 1721–2, giving his address as Threadneedle Street; his earliest known extant works, two silver mugs (priv. col., see Barr, fig.), date from this time. In 1730 he moved to Norris Street and entered into a partnership with John Craig, which continued until 1735, when Wickes moved to the King’s Arms, Panton Street, and began working independently. In that year he was appointed goldsmith to Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the ledgers of his business (London, Garrard & Co.; V&A) record the numerous commissions from royalty, aristocracy and gentry, and are the only surviving examples from the 18th century, indicating that Wickes built up a large and successful enterprise. Such members of the Prince’s circle as Francis, Lord North (later Earl of Guilford), who ordered tureens from Wickes in 1735 (priv. col., see exh. cat., no. 2), may have been influential in his appointment. The Pelham Gold Cup (1736; priv. col., see exh. cat., no. 5), designed by William Kent and made for Colonel James Pelham, Private Secretary to the Prince of Wales, is one of Wickes’s most important works; the design was reproduced by John Vardy in his book Some Designs of Mr Inigo Jones and Mr William Kent (1744) and was widely copied by later London goldsmiths. The elaborate silver-gilt centrepiece (1745; Brit. Royal Col.) made for the Prince by Wickes was also based on a design by Kent. Most of Wickes’s work is in the exuberant Rococo style popularized by the Prince, for example the 170-piece dinner service (1745–7; priv. col., see Barr, app. II) made for James Fitzgerald, 20th Earl of Kildare (later Duke of Leinster; 1722–73). Such features as castwork in Wickes’s pieces are of equal quality to that made by contemporary Huguenot goldsmiths, for example Paul de Lamerie; in fact, the attribution of a number of works to either Wickes or de Lamerie has been disputed. The ledgers of Wickes’s business indicate that he employed a number of subcontractors, the most important of whom was Edward Wakelin, who had virtually taken control of the manufacturing side of the firm by 1747. He supplied Wickes with tableware in the Rococo style, for example a set of silver-gilt vases (1753; Burghley House, Cambs) and an unusual pair of tureens with wave-patterned and ribbed bodies (1755; Al Tajir priv. col.; see exh. cat., no. 15). In 1750 Wickes took his former apprentice Samuel Netherton (1723–1803), and not Wakelin, into partnership. In 1760, however, on the retirement of both Wickes and Netherton, Wakelin and John Parker (who had been apprenticed to Wickes in 1751) took over the business.

Sarah Yates. "Wickes, George." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T091468 (accessed May 2, 2012).