A Menagerie of Silver, the Property of a Gentleman

A pair of Victorian silver lion salts,
by Daniel and Charles Houle, London 1872,



of similar design to the British Museum lions, the seated lions with pull off heads, raised on lozenge-shaped bases, height 7.2cm.





£3,000-£5,000

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

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Collection

Sotheby’s, Sale 27 April 2010, lot 299.

Although not identical, these silver lion salts closely resemble the cast iron lion sculptures that were positioned on the cast iron railings outside the British Museum, designed by Alfred Stevens in 1852.

Alfred George Stevens (1817-1875) was born in Blandford, Dorset, the son of a decorator and joiner. By the age of ten, he was working in his father’s shop as an assistant. In 1833, Stevens travelled to Italy and studied in Naples, Bologna, Siena, Pompeii, Rome, Florence and Venice, remaining in Italy for nine years. While in Rome, he attended the Accademia di Belle Arti and was also employed by the Danish sculptor, Bertel Horvaldsen. Upon his return to England, the young Stevens was hired as a tutor by the School of Design, Somerset House, London. He stayed there until 1850 when he became the head artist at H. E. Hoole and Co in Sheffield, a company that specialised in bronze and metal objects. In 1852, Stevens returned to London, at which time he designed the vases on the railings and the cast iron lions for the dwarf posts in front of the British Museum. The main gates and railings of the museum were installed in May 1852, and a second lower set of railings were erected outside the inner railings, to mark the museum’s boundary, and these were ornamented at intervals with the 25 small cast iron lions, approximately 35cm in height. The story recounted by the British Museum recalls the “regal posture (of the lions) was inspired by a particularly impressive cat belonging to one of the sculptor’s friends”.

When the lions are removed in 1896, some were installed on the railings around the Wellington monument in St Paul’s Cathedral.