Two George III Royal silver sauceboats
full marks only clear on one, Thomas Heming, London 1766
Each of bombé oval form, spirally fluted body capped with a wave design below a reverse fluted and everted rim, cast flying scroll handle with applied acanthus foliage and bell flower with scroll top, on cast spiral fluted and scroll shaped-oval pedestal foot, engraved below the lip with Royal Household garter badges, each of a varying form, one flanked by the engraved cypher GR, also engraved below with a later owners crest, with motto 'LIBERTAS' above, underside of one with engraved scratch weight '20'9', length 19cm, weight 37.9oz.
Footnotes:
The two badges surmounted with Imperial crowns relate to ownership by the household of King George III (1760 - 1820), of Great Britain and Ireland.

It is interesting to note that the service was originally engraved with Royal Arms and King's ciphers and that most pieces were subsequently re-engraved with the new Royal Arms as used after 1801.
It is recorded that the cost of the original engraving of the Royal Arms and King's ciphers was charged at an extra £232 19s 6d (PRO Lc5/ 110, f. 356).

Thomas Heming was appointed Principal Goldsmith to the King in 1760 and was the first working goldsmith to hold this post since the early seventeenth century.
These sauceboats are in a style that was a modified version of the French rococo, still fashionable in the early years of George III's reign and influenced by the designs of Parisian Goldsmith Pierre Germain's 'Eléments d'orfèvrerie devisés' published in Paris in 1748.

They are almost identical to a set of sixteen silver-gilt examples in the Royal Collection, also by Thomas Heming, exhibited, The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London.
The sauceboats held in the Royal Collection form part of the 'Coronation Service'. Despite this title, the commission for the service was not finished in time for use at the King and Queen's coronation banquet on 22 September 1761. The service was used at the 'extremely magnificent banquet' held on 19 September 1768 at the Queen's House in honour of Christian VII of Denmark, who was George III's first cousin in addition to being his brother-in-law, following his marriage to Princess Caroline in 1766.
Modest additions were made to the service throughout the 1760s.

The second later crest cannot be identified. Notably the motto LIBERTAS is used widely in the United States in the early years of the nineteenth century, possibly to indicate the freedom gained in the earlier War of Independence.

Literature
Vanessa Brett, The Sotheby's Directory of Silver, 1600-1940, London, 1986, p. 223, no. 989.

Published to coincide with The Queen's Gallery exhibition, George III & Queen Charlotte: Patronage, Collecting and Court Taste, The Queen's Gallery, 2004, no. 339, pages 322, illustrated 324.

The Royal Collection Trust, accessed via https://www.rct.uk/collection/51843/sauce-boat
This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: *
* VAT on imported items at a preferential rate of 5% on Hammer Price and the prevailing rate on Buyer's Premium.