Antique Collecting: Silver and plate

Antique Collecting: Silver and plate

English

Silver is a so-called 'noble' metal, both its appearance and its uses have earned it this title. It has been employed for many centuries for coinage, jewellery and for making useful and ornamental articles. The pure metal is too soft to withstand normal wear and tear, and therefore it has to be mixed with small proportions of others to make an alloy strong enough to retain its shape and thickness. Without complicated tests it is not possible to tell just how much actual silver is contained in any given quantity of the alloy, and a clear field is left for fraud. To safeguard the purchaser a system of testing and marking, known as 'Hall-marking' because it was first carried out at Goldsmith's Hall in London, was instituted as long ago as the year 1300.

From then onwards a number of statutes directed that silverware should be marked with a lion passant to denote it was up to sterling standard, then with a further mark indicating the maker; and another, a letter of the

Standard (Hester Bateman)
Fig. 6. Examples of marks on a spoon, 1783.

alphabet, standing for the year in which the marking was done. Additional modifications included a figure of Britannia stamped on pieces with a higher percentage of pure silver than the normal; a mark showing the town where the assay was made: a leopard's head for London, an anchor for Birmingham, a crown for Sheffield, etc.; and the head of the sovereign from 1784 until 1890 denoting that Excise Duty on the article had been paid. The marks can be checked against published tables which are obtainable easily, and from them can be learned the exact year in which a piece was marked. It is also possible in most instances to trace the name of the maker. Although silver is valued by weight it is offered for sale usually by the piece, and the more an article is in demand the higher is the price per ounce. It should be remembered that silversmiths use Troy weight:

1 pound = 12 ounces
1 ounce = 20 pennyweights (dwts.)
1 dwt. = 24 grains

Pieces of old silver often have the weight engraved on the underside. The same weights are used for gold, and the quality of the metal is given in carats; which refer to the proportion of pure gold present out of a total of twenty-four parts. Thus, the expression 18-carat gold means that a piece is made from metal composed of eighteen parts of pure gold with six of alloy; 9-carat has nine parts of gold and fifteen of alloy, and so forth.

There are severe penalties for forging marks and for selling unmarked or false silver, but occasional fakes are found. In the nineteenth century it was fashionable to take plain pieces of earlier period and ornament them with embossing and engraving. This work was sometimes accompanied by a 'slight' alteration to the piece; for instance, tankards were turned into jugs by the addition of a spout, and chamber-pots into loving-cups by soldering on an extra handle. Embellishments and alterations of these kinds affect both the appearance and the value of a piece, and it is as well for the beginner to be suspicious of anything offered at a bargain price. As with other antiques of value, a reputable dealer who understands his goods will guide the purchaser soundly.

Of the earlier pieces of silver not a great number have survived, and most of them are in churches, museums or otherwise unlikely to come on the open market. Enormous quantities were melted down during the Civil War, and the majority of old examples to be seen for sale are not older than the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Following the restoration of the monarchy, wealthy men set about replacing their possessions, and great quantities of silverware were made. Much of it was the work of refugees who had come to England recently from the Continent, whence they had fled from religious persecution. Among these Huguenot craftsmen are numbered: Paul de Lamerie, Augustine Courtauld, Pierre Harache and Simon Pantin, recognized for their high standards of workmanship.

The design of silverware was subject to many of the same influences that affected the design of other articles in the home. Turned legs on chairs are reflected in the baluster stems of candlesticks; cabriole legs appear in miniature as supports for cream-jugs and sauce-boats; Chinese patterns were moulded or engraved on articles of all kinds, and teapots and caddies have knobs in the form of squatting Orientals; Adam husks and rams' heads were moulded or embossed, or delicately engraved; and Paul Storr, the early nineteenth-century silversmith, employed the varied fantasies of the Regency either individually or all at the same time.

Changes in domestic customs had an equally marked result. The introduction of tea and coffee drinking at the end of the seventeenth century had a big effect on silversmithing, and called forth a great variety of pieces. Early teapots were modelled on those imported of Chinese porcelain or Yi-hsing red stoneware; later silver ones, in turn, affected the shape of porcelain and pottery teapots. Cream-jugs, sugar-basins, teaspoons and caddies all came into being with the spreading popularity of the drink. Wine-labels were first used in the mid-eighteenth century, when glass decanters elegant enough for the dining- table were made. Fish slices were known at about the same time, but the forks to accompany them did not appear until about 1800. Much can be learned of the customs of our ancestors from a study of the subject, and many of the things they used have been in continual employment since they were made.

Eighteenth-century Scottish and Irish silver has its devotees, and much is of excellent workmanship. Often it has an admirable simplicity of line, but most resembles closely the English wares of the period and it is, of course, rarer. Pieces from both of these countries were marked in a manner similar to those of England, but with letters and symbols that clearly indicate their origin.

Continental

The sale at Sothebys in London of a silver dinner service made in Paris between 1735 and 1738 focused attention on foreign silver. The 168 pieces, made by the eminent silversmith Jacques Roettier, which had been in one family since they were made, fetched ($579,600, (Ł207,000). Such a very large sum is unusual for a single lot of silver of any nationality, but the service was a most outstanding one. The price it realized need not alarm the average collector, for the majority of foreign silver fortunately can be bought for considerably less money.

Just as English silver suffered great losses during the Civil War, so the many wars that raged on the Continent during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries caused the destruction of large quantities almost everywhere. Further, in France, the Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars wiped out a very large proportion of the remaining early French pieces. In view of the turbulent history of every country it is surprising that any silver has survived anywhere, but in fact a considerable amount can be found. As in other branches of collecting, however, there is a shortage of pieces of the highest quality.

On the whole, the study of much Continental silver is made difficult by a lack of information on the subject; few reliable books have been published, and authoritative opinions are hard to obtain. In spite of numerous regulations enforcing both assaying and marking much old foreign silverware is unmarked, and to complicate the matter there is a glut of fakes.

The earliest pieces of any nationality are extremely rare and seldom to be seen outside the strongest showcases of the largest museums. Pieces made in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are sometimes to be bought, but the more important ones are expensive.

The most sought include: seventeenth-century cups of all kinds, many of German origin and often in unusual forms; Swedish tankards of large size on ball feet and each with a coin set in the cover; Dutch and German teapots in styles that were imitated closely in Continental porcelain; almost anything French of the early eighteenth century or before. However, the written word can give little idea of the masterpieces and near-masterpieces that were made in each country; the actual pieces must be seen and studied. In most instances this is achieved best in the land of their origin.

American

American silver .vas made first in the mid-seventeenth century, and for a considerable time after showed strong foreign influences: Dutch, French and Scandinavian clearly being discernible in many instances. Further, the earliest silversmiths were two Englishmen, John Hull and Robert Sanderson, of Boston, Massachusetts. While makers' marks are found, either in the form of initials or the full name, date letters were not used. Pieces can be dated only by their style, by the known working-period of their maker or, if there is a dated one, by an inscription. Early American silver is very rare, and most of the important surviving specimens are in museums in the major cities or in the art galleries of colleges.

Among the earlier successful Boston makers were John Allen and John Edwards, Jeremiah Dummer, Edward Winslow and John Coney. The latter took as apprentice the famous patriot and silversmith, Paul Revere (1735-1818), whose ride from Charlestown to Lexington in 1775 was immortalized with due poetic license by Longfellow. Revere is not only an American hero, but his craftsmanship has earned him the appreciation of collectors.

New York boasted a group of Dutch makers together with others of French descent. Other centres of silver-making were Philadelphia, Connecticut, Baltimore and Annapolis in Maryland, and Newport, Rhode Island. The variety of pieces made was much smaller than that of European countries. On the whole, large pieces were either never made or have disappeared; a Baltimore soup-tureen is believed to be unique.

In view of its rarity and the zeal with which it is sought, American silver has been faked, ingeniously, English and foreign pieces have had marks removed, leaving only one or more that might be interpreted as those of an American maker.

Sheffield Plate

The manufacture of Sheffield plate was made possible by the discovery in 1743 that plates of silver and copper could be fused together to form one indivisible sheet of metal. Thus, an article could be manufactured exactly similar in external appearance to one of solid silver, but from material costing far less. The inventor of the process was a Sheffield cutler, Thomas Bolsover (1704-88;.

For some years only small articles were made, but by 1760 production had increased and bigger pieces were attempted with success. Later, it was found possible to plate an ingot of copper on both sides, and it was then no longer necessary to coat the inside or underside of an article with tin; which had been done hitherto. As methods had been devised already for concealing the red line of copper showing where it was cut on an edge, the resemblance to silver was very close. The deception was aided further by the fact that some makers marked their wares with stamps that could be confused easily with those on silver.

Production of Sheffield plate received a fillip when a duty of 6d an ounce was levied on silverware in 1784, and again in 1815 •when the duty was raised to 1s 6d an ounce. The ware was made in quantity between 1780 and 1830 and a surprisingly large amount has survived. After 1830 little was made, and then began the plating of silver on a base of German silver (an alloy which showed silvery when the outer coat of real silver wore through). Finally, in 1838 this was superseded by the introduction of electroplating.

Genuine Sheffield plate in good condition is scarce; in the course of time the coating of silver has often worn away in places and the copper is revealed clearly. When this happens the piece can be given a fresh coat of silver electrically, but the colour and texture of the old cannot be reproduced. Once Sheffield plate has been tampered with in this way much of its value has been lost for ever, and the careful buyer will not want to add such specimens to his collection.

Books

The standard work dealing with the marks of English silversmiths as well as date-letters and hall-marks is:

English Goldsmiths and Their Marks, by Sir Charles J. Jackson. A useful and comprehensive guide to the same subject is English Domestic Silver, by Charles Oman*; hall-marks and date-letters are located conveniently in a clearly printed pocket-sized booklet, compiled by Frederick Bradbury of Sheffield, obtainable from most good silversmiths.*

Frederick Bradbury's History of Old Sheffield Plate (1902), is a standard work.

A Metropolitan Museum of New York Picture Book, Early-American Silver* is a useful illustrated introduction to the subject.

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