A pair of George IV silver entrée dishes and covers, from the Sampaio service
Paul Storr, London 1823
Each shaped-rectangular with gadroon, shell and acanthus borders, the covers with incurved corners, leaf-capped scroll handles on a splayed leafy calyx, each cover applied twice with a coat of arms below a barons coronet, bases also engraved twice with a demi unicorn argent, armed or, maned proper with barons coronet, each numbered 2 and 3, length 30cm, weight 161oz. (2)
Footnotes:
The arms are those of Teixeira quartering Sampaio, Amaral and Guedes for Henrique Teixeira de Sampaio, Barao de Teixeira, later 1st Conde de Póvoa (1774-1833)

On 22 May 1816 the title 1st Lord de Sampaio was conferred upon him by King João VI in Rio de Janeiro. Soon after, on 6 March 1819, he was made, by Royal Charter, 1st Barao de Teixeira and was granted the right to bear arms. He was created 1st Conde de Póvoa on 3 July 1823, named after his estate in Póvoa de Santo Adrião, near Lisbon.

These dishes are part of the extensive service for 180 persons, ordered by the Conde de Povoa from Paul Storr in 1822-23. This was exactly at the moment that Storr, who left Rundell, Bridge and Rundell in 1819, opened a retail shop in New Bond Street in partnership with John Mortimer. The Sampaio service represents one of the most elaborate and greatest productions of Storr's new shop.

Henrique Teixeira de Sampaio died at his home of Rua da Escola Politécnica, in Lisbon, on 27 March 1833, aged 59 years. His son JoãoMaria de Noronha became 2nd Conde de Póvoa and inherited the family fortune, aged only 6. The 2nd Conde died soon after, in 1837 at which time the titles became extinct and the fortune passed to his sister Marie Louise de Noronha Sampaio.
The service descended at Casa Palmela, Lisbon, the family home of the Dukes of Palmela.