The oldest silver sauce boats were made in the early eighteenth century around 1715. Sauceboats are rare at this date and stand on an oval foot with a lip at either end for pouring with a handle to each side.
By the late 1720s sauce boats with the handle on the end and on an oval foot were introduced and the double lipped sauce was falling out of fashion. In the mid-1730s there was a large increase in different styles with the sauceboat on three feet becoming preeminent and from then on the variety of forms and methods of ornament expanded vastly.
Tureens for sauce and the larger tureens for soup started to become commonplace by the middle of the eighteenth century (The earliest soup tureens date from the 1730s, sauce tureens around 1750). Soup tureens were made in a large variety of styles from the plain to the rococo .Soup tureens were always made with lids but often sauce tureens were made without lids normally in pairs but sometimes in sets of four. As with Soup tureens they are occasionally made with matching stands, but these are comparatively rare.
Sauce boats and tureens are wonderful for decorating the table to make the dining experience extra special
At William Walter Antiques we always have a fine selection of sauce boats, sauce tureens, and soup tureens with some of the finest eighteenth century silversmiths such as Thomas Heming Silversmith to George III and the famous Huguenot lady silversmith Elizabeth Godfrey represented at this present time.