Beschreibung:

AUSTEN, Jane (1775-1817)] – Three forks bearing the Austen crest, a stag sejant upon a mural crown: a George III silver Hanoverian-pattern table fork, mark of Richard Crossley, London, 1812; a silver-plate fiddle-pattern dessert fork and a silver-plate fiddle-pattern table fork, both with mark of Elkington and Co., 19th-century.
AUSTEN, Jane (1775-1817)] – Three forks bearing the Austen crest, a stag sejant upon a mural crown: a George III silver Hanoverian-pattern table fork, mark of Richard Crossley, London, 1812; a silver-plate fiddle-pattern dessert fork and a silver-plate fiddle-pattern table fork, both with mark of Elkington and Co., 19th-century. Provenance : by direct descent from Charles Austen (1779-1852), the residual legatee of Cassandra Austen (1773-1845), herself the heiress of the estates of her mother and sister, Jane. The contents of the cottage at Chawton passed to Charles after the death of Cassandra. AUSTEN FLATWARE FROM CHAWTON . Fairbairn lists as the secondary crest of the Knight family of Chawton House [descending from Edward Austen Knight, Jane Austen's third-eldest brother], thus: 'on a mural crown or, a stag sejant arg. attired or (Austen) ' (J. Fairbairn, Book of Crests , 1968, vol. I, p. 323), while in Burke's General Armory it is listed under the family Austen, 'of which was Miss Jane Austen, the celebrated novelist'. For how long the forks might have been held at Chawton House itself, residence of Edward Austen Knight, before a likely move to the Chawton cottage inhabited by Jane, Cassandra and their mother is unclear; one fork bears an 1812 marking, the same year that Edward Austen adopted the Knight name and their crest of a demi-friar habited, and it can be assumed that new flatware thus marked (as is held at Chawton House today) would have phased out earlier sets. Christie's is grateful for the advice of Deirdre Le Faye on the cataloguing of this lot .