CHATS ON OLD
SHEFFIELD
PLATE
COMPANION VOLUME BY THE SAME AUTHOR
CHATS ON OLD SILVER
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE MARKS STAMPED UPON SILVER
II. ECCLESIASTICAL PLATE
III. THE MAZER, THE STANDING CUP, THE FLAGON, THE
TANKARD, THE BEAKER, THE WINE CUP
IV. THE SALT CELLAR
V. THE SPOON
VI. THE POSSET POT, THE PORRINGER
VII. THE CANDLESTICK
VIII. THE TEAPOT, THE COFFEE POT, THE TEA CADDY
IX. THE CASTER, THE SUGAR BOWL, THE CREAM PAIL, THE
CAKE BASKET
X. THE CREAM JUG
XI. SCOTTISH SILVER
XII. IRISH SILVER
APPENDIX.--TABLES OF DATE LETTERS, LONDON (1598-1905)--TABLE
OF DIFFERENCES IN SHIELDS, LONDON
(ELIZABETH TO GEORGE V)--ILLUSTRATIONS OF
MARKS, LONDON, PROVINCIAL, SCOTTISH AND IRISH
[Illustration: OLD SHEFFIELD PLATED CENTREPIECE.
On circular base, with nine plated wire baskets for glass dishes on
spiral branches.
Date 1775-1780.
(_In the collection of B. B. Harrison, Esq._)
_Frontispiece._]
CHATS ON
OLD SHEFFIELD PLATE
BY
ARTHUR HAYDEN
AUTHOR OF "CHATS ON OLD SILVER," "CHATS
ON OLD CLOCKS" ETC.
WITH FRONTISPIECE AND 58 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
INCLUDING 5 PAGES OF MAKERS' MARKS
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD
LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
_First published_ 1920
_Second Impression_ 1924
(_All rights reserved_)
TO MY FRIEND
WALTER IDRIS,
IN APPRECIATION OF
KINDRED RECOGNITION
PREFACE
Many readers have importuned me to write a companion volume to my
_Chats on Old Silver_, to complete the chain of evolution of the
metal-smith's art in regard to silver plate and silver plated ware.
Accordingly this volume appears as a complementary and companion volume
to that on "Old Silver," and although the former describes the history
and character of the silversmiths' work from Elizabeth to Victoria,
the present volume covers a much shorter period, approximately a
hundred years, when the plater's skill, in what is now generally known
as old Sheffield Plate, of superimposing a thin sheet of silver on a
copper base, won a triumph in the great art of simulation until it was
superseded by the modern electro-plating process.
The invention was discovered and first practised at Sheffield, but it
soon covered a wider area, and plated ware by fusion and rolled was
made at Birmingham, London, Nottingham and elsewhere. But it still
retains the name of Sheffield Plate, and nothing can remove this
title from the public mind, although it is a misnomer. "Sheffield
Plate" is Sheffield solid silver duly assayed at the Sheffield Assay
Office, which has existed since 1773, and bears the crown as the town
mark together with the maker's initials and the date letter, the same
as sterling silver plate assayed at London, Birmingham, Chester,
Edinburgh, Dublin, or any other of the assay offices. _Sheffield Plated
Ware_ is a copy or simulation of real plate. It was, as this volume
shows, possessed of considerable artistic qualities, it was fashioned
by craftsmen who were masters of a clever technique, and it is, if not
a lost art, certainly an art not practised in the old methods nor with
the same exactitude nowadays, and as such it is worthy of the serious
attention of the collector.
As to its artistry purists may cavil at its imitativeness. Although
"imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" the contemporary
silversmiths of London and elsewhere were far from flattered. They
began to be alarmed at the growth of the manufacture, and protective
Acts of Parliament were passed to safeguard the interests of
silversmiths against competition by silver platers.
In regard to technique I have given sufficient details to enable
collectors to identify their possessions and to take a further interest
in details of craftsmanship.
By permission of the Board of Education I am reproducing several
designs from the copper-plate illustrations of the old Catalogues and
Pattern Books issued to buyers of their wares on the Continent of
Europe by the leading firms of Sheffield in the eighteenth century.
In regard to information concerning the manufacture of plate by fusion
at Dublin I am under an obligation to Dudley Westropp, Esq., of the
National Museum, Dublin, for notes embodied herein relating to the
importation of Sheffield plated ware into Ireland and its attempted
manufacture there.
I have also to acknowledge the kindness of G. Harry Wallis, Esq.,
F.S.A., of the Nottingham Museum and Art Gallery, for the inclusion of
illustrations of several examples.
The Corporation of Sheffield have allowed me to have special
photographs taken of examples exhibited in the Public Museum,
Sheffield, and I am indebted to the Curator, E. Howarth, Esq., for his
courtesy in enabling this to be carried out successfully.
I have had access by the kindness of collectors to several
representative collections. I am especially indebted to B. B. Harrison,
Esq., for enabling me to illustrate herein many fine examples from his
choice collection.
To Walter H. Willson, Esq., I have to express acknowledgment for
allowing me to reproduce illustrations of specimens of old Sheffield
plated ware that have passed through his hands for many years, and for
much information afforded me in connection with the old technique.
In regard to marks on old Sheffield and other plated ware, in view of
strictures on marks laid down by Acts of Parliament, I have come to
the conclusion that marks on old Sheffield plated ware are somewhat
negligible, as they lack the authoritative exactitude of those placed
by law on silver plate. There were marks when the Sheffield makers
simulated silver marks till they alarmed the silversmiths and were
stopped by statute. Then came a hiatus. Then again they adopted trade
marks plentifully found, but these marks are not always found on
examples of the best period. So in adjudging old Sheffield plated ware,
marks have a subsidiary place, and they are accorded a subsidiary place
in this volume.
I submit this volume unhesitatingly to lovers of old Sheffield plated
ware as a carefully considered exposition of what was produced for
a hundred years, consisting of fine design, exquisite balance, and
wonderful technique, till plating became a scientific process and
electro-plating became of common usage. But this is modernity.
ARTHUR HAYDEN.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 7
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 13
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION 17
CHAPTER II
EARLY DAYS (THE INVENTION OF SILVER-PLATING BY
FUSION AT SHEFFIELD) 43
CHAPTER III
CANDELABRA AND CANDLESTICKS 79
CHAPTER IV
SALT CELLARS AND MUSTARD POTS 133
CHAPTER V
CAKE BASKETS, DECANTER STANDS (COASTERS), DISH
OR POTATO RINGS, INKSTANDS AND TAPER
HOLDERS 159
CHAPTER VI
TEAPOTS, TEA AND COFFEE SETS, TEA KETTLES,
COFFEE POTS, SUGAR BASINS 187
CHAPTER VII
SOUP TUREENS, HOT WATER JUGS, THE SUPPER TABLE 217
CHAPTER VIII
CENTREPIECES 243
CHAPTER IX
CLOSE PLATING 259
APPENDIX, MARKS ON OLD SILVER (1753-1840) 271
" MARKS ON OLD SHEFFIELD PLATE 285
INDEX 295
ILLUSTRATIONS
Old Sheffield Plated Centrepiece _Frontispiece_
CHAPTER I.--INTRODUCTION
PAGE
Soup Tureen and Fruit Dish carved in Pear-wood 29
Wedgwood Dessert Basket and Dessert Centrepiece 33
Group of Silver Lustre Ware and Glass Candlesticks 37
CHAPTER II.--EARLY DAYS
Knives, with Medallion of Shakespeare 51
Wine Label, Buttons 51
Group of Patch Boxes 55
Candlestick, 1775, from Old Pattern Book (18th century) 65
Candlestick, 1795, Old Pattern Book (18th century) 69
Candlesticks, 1797, Old Pattern Book (18th century) 75
CHAPTER III.--CANDELABRA AND CANDLESTICKS
Candlestick, 1785 83
Candelabrum, 1800 87
Candelabrum (7-lights), 1820 91
Candelabrum (5-lights), 1810 93
Candelabrum (2-lights), 1790 97
Candelabra, 1790 101
Candelabrum (Single twist), 1790 103
Candelabrum (Double twist) 107
Candelabrum, 1795; Candelabrum, 1790-1795 111
Candelabrum, Small, Candlestick, Lyre Design 113
Candelabrum (3-lights), 1805; Candelabrum (4-lights), 1810 117
Candelabrum (3-lights), 1820 121
Old Print _Serena_ (after Romney) Chamber Candlesticks 123
Table Candlesticks, 1765, 1770, 1795 127
Table Candlesticks, 1780, 1790, 1795 129
Table Candlesticks, 1810, 1820, 1830 129
CHAPTER IV.--SALT CELLARS AND MUSTARD POTS
Salt Cellars, from Old Pattern Book (18th century) 137
Salt Cellars, from Old Pattern Book (18th century) 141
Mustard Pots, from Old Pattern Book (18th century) 145
Mustard Pots, 1775, 1785, 1790 149
Mustard Pots, from Old Pattern Book (18th century) 151
Pepper Casters, Group of 155
Mustard Pots, Group of 155
CHAPTER V.--CAKE BASKETS, DECANTER STANDS,
DISH RINGS, INKSTANDS, ETC.
Cake Baskets, Wire Work, 1800, 1810 163
Decanter Stands (Coasters), Group of, 1785-1790 167
Decanter Stands (Coasters), Group of, 1805, 1810, 1815 169
Decanter Stands (Coasters), Group of, 1805, 1820 173
Butter Dish 175
Dish or Potato Ring 175
Inkstands, from Old Pattern Book (18th century) 179
Taper Holders, from Old Pattern Book (18th century) 183
CHAPTER VI.--TEAPOTS, TEA KETTLES, COFFEE POTS,
SUGAR BASINS
Teapot, 1792, from Old Pattern Book (18th century) 191
Teapot and Tea Caddies, Cake Basket 193
Tea and Coffee Sets, 1810, 1820 197
Tea and Coffee Sets, 1825, 1830 199
Tea Urn, 1810 203
Tea Kettles and Stands, 1805, 1820 207
Coffee Pot, French, Silver-plated; Sugar Baskets, Pierced
Work 211
Sugar Baskets, 1825 213
CHAPTER VII.--TUREENS, HOT WATER JUGS, ETC.
Soup Tureen, 1805 221
Soup Tureens, 1815, 1825 225
Soup Tureen, 1815 229
Hot Water Jugs (2) 229
Entrée Dishes, 1815, 1825 233
Hot Water Jug, Adam style, 1770 235
Toasted Cheese Dishes, 1800, 1810 239
Pipe Lighter, 1783 239
CHAPTER VIII.--CENTREPIECES
Centrepieces, 1790, 1810 247
Centrepiece, with Female Figures 251
Chestnut Dish; Fruit Basket, 1810 255
Appendix
Marks on Silver Plate 275, 279, 283
Marks on Old Sheffield Plate 287, 291
I
INTRODUCTION
IMITATION AS A FINE ART
ECONOMIC SUBSTITUTION
EUROPEAN IMITATIVENESS
PARALLELS IN ENGLISH CRAFTSMANSHIP
EARLY PLATING
SILVER PLATERS AT SHEFFIELD
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
=Imitation as a fine art--Economic substitution--European
imitativeness--Parallels in English craftsmanship--Early
plating--Silver platers at Sheffield.=
Imitation is no new thing in art. Indeed it may be advanced as an
axiom that no art worthy of the name has ever come into being without
inheriting the traditions and technique of some preceding _motifs_.
Bizarre movements have at one time and another seized artists and
craftsmen, they have become anarchist in regard to all previous art
postulates, and produced somewhat chaotic and formless results. The
fantastic jazz in art circles known as _L'Art Nouveau_ some years ago,
temporarily upset the balance of the younger generation of designers,
spent its force in unchecked licence, and ended so ignominiously that
it is now entirely forgotten, nor has it left any permanent impression
upon succeeding schools.
Now and again imitation has been resorted to by well-known masters
to flagellate the taste of their own day. Embittered by constant
praise of old works they have made imitations of old masters' styles
and foisted them on their critics until at such moment they divulged
their authorship and pricked the bubble of the undue adoration of
the ancients. Pierre Mignard fabricated a Magdalen and through the
complicity of a dealer it was sold as a newly discovered Guido to
the Chevalier de Clairville. Presently it was noised about that the
painting was by Mignard. Le Brun, the great painter, pronounced it to
be a Guido and in his best manner. The jest had gone far enough, the
owner, Mignard, Le Brun, and the critics met to settle the affair.
Le Brun and the critics adhered to their belief in its authenticity.
Mignard protested otherwise, and said he had painted the work over
the portrait of a cardinal, and as proof dipped a brush in oil and
disclosed the cardinal's hat. Le Brun, bursting with anger, satirically
exclaimed, "Always paint Guido but never Mignard." But the canvases
of Mignard and Le Brun both hang together in the leading galleries of
Europe.
Nor is this a solitary instance of the pique of artists for lack of
discernment in contemporary criticism. Goltzius, that masterly exponent
of strongly graved lines on the copper, produced and published six
prints in the style of Albert Dürer, Lucas van Leyden and others, and
one, the Circumcision, was sold as one of Dürer's finest achievements.
These six engravings of Goltzius are known among his work as the
"masterpieces." They are certainly masterly imitations, and he
executed them to show his critics that though his was a new style, yet
he could if he chose slavishly follow the manner of the old masters.
These are instances of imitation used ironically as a weapon to pour
scorn on the mediocrity and want of knowledge of critics.
In pictures there have been whole generations of imitators and
copyists. The continent in the eighteenth century was flooded with sham
Correggios, Claudes, Poussins, and Cuyps, and many English painters,
afterwards well known, did not disdain to make copies for the dealers
of old masters' pictures. David Allan, called the "Scottish Hogarth,"
was an adept in copying chalk drawings from the old masters; and many
artists eked out a pitiable existence as copyists while waiting for
the public to acclaim their original work. John Jackson copied the
head of Reynolds for Chantrey which could have passed for the original
by Sir Joshua. A Rubens he painted in the presence of the students of
the Royal Academy was acclaimed as faithful to the original. He was
unequalled in such facsimile imitations. Henry Liverseege, in the early
days of the nineteenth century, copied Vandyck, Rubens, and Teniers
with such skill that few could say which was the original and which the
copy. Two pictures, one by Sir Edwin Landseer, and the other a copy,
were to be sold on successive days at auction. The painter, strolling
in to the auction room on the day before the copy was sold, mistook it
for his own work.
At the galleries of the Fine Art Society, in Bond Street in 1875, an
exhibition was held of a series of facsimiles of Turner drawings in the
National Gallery lent by Ruskin and executed for him by Mr. Ward. Of
these replicas, Ruskin said in a note: "I have given my best attention
during upwards of ten years to train a copyist to perfect fidelity in
rendering the works of Turner, and have now succeeded in enabling him
to produce facsimiles so close as to look like replicas--facsimiles
which I must sign with my own name to prevent their being sold for real
Turner vignettes."
=Economic Substitution.=--But imitation has many phases. Modern
photography in copying the great works of old masters has made it
possible to study their works with exactitude in the dimensions of
black and white, and if the work is an etching or an engraving the
reproduction claims a closer relationship with the original. The art
of engraving from painters' work is imitative to the extent that it
depicts the same subject and takes its initial inspiration from the
painted canvas. But it claims a much higher regard--the great school of
interpretative engravers translated painting into terms of black and
white.
Economically, therefore, it will be seen that there is a real reason
why imitative art, on whatever plane it finds itself, should hold its
place. In a broad sense it has had a mission. It is true, as Goethe
said, that "There are many echoes but few voices"; but the echoes have
their value too until they reverberate into nothingness and new voices
arise. As a substitute, therefore, for unattainable works of art any
medium that will so successfully simulate the original as to convey the
lines and the grace, the colour and the harmony, though in a lesser
degree than the original, is to be welcomed for its own sake.
There are many occasions when sacrifices have had to be made and when
prototypes have been destroyed and substitutes have arisen which
have artistically filled the hiatus, if only for the time being. For
instance, the extravagance of Louis XIV in regard to sumptuous silver
passed all bounds. At a fête at Versailles in 1668 on each side of the
royal buffet was elevated on a portico ten feet high a grand silver
guéridon bearing a massive silver girandole which lighted the buffet,
accompanied by numerous large silver vases. On the table and steps of
the buffet, which reached the height of twenty-five feet, were arranged
twenty-four massive bowls of fine workmanship--these were separated by
as many large vases, cassolettes and girandoles of great beauty. There
were on the table twenty-four large silver jardinières full of flowers,
in front was a great silver cistern shaped like a shell, at the two
extremities were four guéridons, six feet high, surmounted by silver
girandoles. Two other tables for the ladies were similarly equipped
with masterpieces of the silversmiths' art.
In 1688 the _Grande Monarque_ needed money to carry on his wars, and
he issued an edict forbidding the manufacture of such massive silver,
and sent all his plate to the Mint. So all this fine work, designed,
made by Claude Ballin, Pierre Germain, Montars and other celebrated
craftsmen after designs by Le Brun, was melted down; happily the pieces
were first drawn by the artist goldsmith Delaunay and their forms are
preserved. The king made it compulsory that the fine plate of the
nobility should be sacrificed too, and in consequence most of the fine
old silver was melted down.
But here comes the imitative note. The age of sumptuous silversmiths'
work was followed by an age of fine pottery. Beautifully decorated
earthenware and porcelain became fashionable. Rouen made a special
service for Louis XIV, and a great impetus was given to the art of the
factories of Moustiers, Marseilles and Nevers, and thus the nobles of
France had their banquets from the clay of the potter instead of from
the vessels of the silversmith.
As will be shown later the relationship between the art of the potter
and that of the silversmith has always been somewhat closely allied.
The designs of the one have, although not necessarily adapted to a
differing technique, been boldly taken and assimilated in results that
leave their note of incongruity to be criticized by collectors and
connoisseurs to-day.
=European Imitativeness.=--In order to arrive at a closer
appreciation of the niceties of imitation, perhaps it would be better
to commence by attempting to understand what is originality and where
it can be found. But that would entail a great amount of study. In
porcelain one would have to follow the attempts of the Dutch school
of potters and bow down in admiration to Meissen, where the first
true porcelain was made in Europe. All else is imitative, including
Sèvres and Wedgwood and Worcester. Nor does imitation stand arrested
at technique, it follows slavishly the oriental prototype in design.
We find pagodas and Chinese landscapes, and little figures which meant
so much in a language of symbolism, scattered promiscuously on Delft
beakers and on Bow cups. Wedgwood, in his Portland Vase, copied a
prototype of blue glass. In his classic subjects in relief on his vases
and his cameos he builded on the reputation of Greek and Roman types
translated through the brain of John Flaxman, and there was a school of
potters who came second-hand after Wedgwood and imitatively carried on
his classic style.
The whole of the school of decorating furniture in lac is imitated from
the East, and a poor imitation at best.
What the glass-worker did at Venice was copied over the Alps in
Germany. It suffered in translation and finally became something new.
The bulbous appendages to German glass were the crescendo note of the
Italian more reticent ornament. When the Murano glass-worker added the
tiny griffin-like symbolized version of the small sea-horse found in
the Adriatic to the handles of his tazzas, he added a touch of grace
and beauty. But the German developed these into chimerical beasts.
In an examination of European art one wonders where imitation ends and
where originality begins. Originality unfortunately often begins just
at that point when the original touch of genius is lost sight of and
when banal excrescences are added, meaningless and offensive.
But originality and fertility of design often begin when
experimentalists set out to produce one thing and realized another, and
commenced a new technique and became original in so doing. The search
for the philosopher's stone was futile, the old alchymists in their
laboratories, though they never found the means of transmuting baser
metals into gold, made experiments which begat the results of modern
science.
Impulses are carried out in various countries in accordance with
national limitations. The East African negro who patiently covers a gin
bottle with bead-work, proudly displayed as native art by a missionary
society in London, is obeying the instinct to embellish and add his own
genius to that of the alien. He knows the value the white man puts on
the spirit bottle, and he worships afar off at the same shrine.
=Parallels in English Craftsmanship.=--In regard to Sheffield
plated ware, if it be advanced that it was imitative of old silver
and therefore negligible, we must claim as a parallel old English
earthenware, where, although the technique differed from that of the
potting of porcelain, it did simulate porcelain, and examples of the
one are found in replica of the other. As to production the reason for
imitativeness is often to effect economy. Nor should this be anathema
in art. Undoubtedly Staffordshire and all its products struck hard
at the English porcelain factories. But, in spite of its initial
imitativeness and its wary regard for competitive lines, it did win a
path of its own. There the parallel ceases because earthenware was made
in England prior to porcelain.
Imitativeness in various arts is common enough. The glass-worker and
the potter copied the silversmith. The cabinet-maker was indebted to
both and _vice versa_. We find acanthus ornament in wood and in metal,
the strapwork of the Tudor carver on wood and on silver. The cupid in
metal on the Stuart clock case is duplicated in the stretcher of the
chair carved in walnut, and is found in stone at Hampton Court and St.
Paul's in similar ornament. Wedgwood snatched the topographical designs
from copper-plate engravings to decorate his service for Catherine
II of Russia, depicting English country seats and views. Chippendale
borrowed from the Chinese, and echoed Marot, the French designer, in
his original designs which burst upon the town in his _Director_.
Nor does it seem to trouble the collector of china overmuch that
Worcester copied oriental models and even used a spurious Chinese
mark, that Bow boldly proclaimed itself as "New Canton," and copied
Worcester, and that Lowestoft copied both. The invention of transfer
printing upon china is claimed by Worcester, by Liverpool and by
Battersea, and all three employed designs which were not original. The
whole school of designs transfer-printed upon china is imitative, many
of them had already appeared as illustrations to books.
Take another art, that of stipple engraving printed in colours. Here
indeed is an imitative art. An engraving in black and white is a
translation of a subject in colours. When printed in colours it sets
out to be imitative of another art. But collectors have not been shy
to give as much as four figures for some of these eighteenth century
colour prints, greater prices even than the original paintings would
bring under the hammer. The subject is illimitable and provocative of
much argument.
[Illustration: SOUP TUREEN AND LADLE CARVED IN PEAR-WOOD.]
[Illustration: FRUIT DISH AND STAND CARVED IN PEAR-WOOD.
(_At the Wedgwood Museum at Etruria._)]
As interesting examples showing the versatility of designers, and
that potters and silversmiths and woodworkers not only touched at
many points but actually assimilated designs more proper to
another technique in which they were working. The technique of the
metal workers should have little to recommend its adoption by the
cabinet-maker, yet we find tea caddies in Chippendale's _Director_
which have details certainly more fit to be executed as mounts by the
French ormulu workers than by the English wood-carvers, even though in
soft mahogany. Josiah Wedgwood availed himself of many suggestions from
other fields than that of pottery. A Soup Tureen and Ladle carved in
pear-wood is at the Museum at Etruria to prove this excursion of his
for models. This illustration (p. 29) clearly shows a design, although
executed in wood, having certain ornaments which more properly belong
to the technique of the silversmith.
Another carved pear-wood model is that of a Fruit Dish and Stand. Here
again there peeps forth not so much the technique of the wood-carver as
the peculiar and more easily obtainable ornament of the metal worker.
It might be a Sheffield plated Decanter Stand or Coaster.
Josiah Wedgwood's collection of shells provided him with many a model
for his cream ware dishes. He has used the small flattish escallop
like shells--_Pholus Æstatus_, _Pectem Japonicum_, _Area Antiquat_ and
others, with great effect and crudely suggested the natural colours. In
these the silversmiths helped themselves liberally to Wedgwood's models
and we find innumerable single shell designs prevalent since their
adoption in pottery by Wedgwood. It would similarly appear that they
were equally indebted to him for another of his bold replicas of nature
in the fine Dessert Centrepiece (illustrated, p. 33). As spoon-warmers
and for other purposes the silversmith found this model from old
Josiah's conchological collection remarkably practical and accordingly
lost no time in imitating it.
Another Wedgwood piece, a Dessert Basket (illustrated, p. 33) proves
that Josiah had his own back, for the pierced ornament is distinctly
taken from the silversmith and is more proper to his art than to that
of the worker in clay.[1] "One can trace the motives of much of his
work, both as to form and decoration, in the collections of various
kinds which he was amassing, and in his constant intercourse with the
metal-workers of Sheffield and Birmingham. To the former source he
was indebted for the designs derived from objects of natural history,
particularly shells and plants; to the latter source he owed many
shapes and methods of decorative treatment which were used for silver
plated ware." His introduction of diapers and other conventional
designs in pierced and perforated work come straight from the Sheffield
silver platers, and this style of ornamentation done in the same county
as Sheffield, at the Leeds pottery, was carried to its extreme limit by
Messrs. Hartley Green & Co., who became the most successful imitators
of Wedgwood's cream ware, about the year 1783.
[Footnote 1: _Josiah Wedgwood_, by Professor Church, 1903.]
[Illustration: WEDGWOOD CREAM WARE DESSERT BASKET.
Showing fine pierced work.
(_Reproduced by the courtesy of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons._)]
[Illustration: WEDGWOOD CREAM WARE DESSERT CENTREPIECE.
Designed from Josiah Wedgwood's collection of shells.
(_In the Museum at Etruria._)
(_Reproduced by the courtesy of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons._)]
The illustration (p. 37) shows the competitive repetition of design
contemporary with Sheffield plate. The potter found earthenware,
covered with a fine platinum glaze, was a colourable imitation of
silver plate. If the squire had his plate and persons of lesser degree
more economically inclined had their Sheffield plate, the cottager
could have a fine, glittering array of silver lustre vessels. Nor
was the glass-worker behindhand in coming into the field, as the
illustration shows.
=Early Plating.=--In early days silver was used sparingly before
the Spanish fleets from South America had poured silver into Europe.
Ancient drinking vessels of wood such as the mazer, a drinking bowl
much like a punch bowl, were decorated with silver bands. Cocoa-nut
cups were similarly decorated. By the end of the sixteenth century,
solid silver had replaced most of these forms for use in the spacious
days of Elizabeth. The early records show that certain goldsmiths were
guilty of _mals outrages_. In the fourteenth century gold was debased
by mixing it with glass, silver by adding lead or fine sand. Latten and
brass vessels were silvered and passed off as being of solid silver.
One Edward Bor in 1376 was summoned before the mayor and aldermen of
London to make answer "that he had silvered 240 buttons of latone and
34 circlets of latone for purses called gibesers (gipcières) and had
maliciously purposed and imagined to sell the same for pure silver in
deceit of the people"; both he and a confederate one Michael Hakeneye
were sent to Newgate prison. Another case of John of Rochester in 1414
is recorded where he counterfeited mazer bands in copper and brass,
plated over with silver.
It is interesting to read that "no artificer nor another other man
shall gild nor silver any such locks, rings, beads, candlesticks,
harness for girdles, chalices, hilts nor pommels of swords, powder
boxes, nor covers for cups made of copper or latten, upon pain to
forfeit to the King one hundred shillings every time, and to make
satisfaction to the party grieved for his damages. But that (chalices
always excepted) the said artificers may work ornaments for the Church
of copper and latten, and the same gild or silver, so that always in
the foot or some other part of such ornament the copper and latten
shall be plain, that a man may see whereof the thing is made for to
eschew the deceit aforesaid."
As to the hall marks on silver[2] the series of Acts of Parliament
relating to the assaying, marking and regulating wrought plate and
ascertaining the standard "for the good and safety of the public,"
covers a long period. British hall marks possess a reputation extending
over three hundred years. Heavy penalties were exacted for fabrication
of marks. In France in 1724 an edict was passed declaring sentence
of death against those who counterfeited stamps or insert or solder
stamps on other plate.
[Footnote 2: See _Chats on Old Silver_, by Arthur Hayden, pp. 25-63.]
[Illustration: GROUP OF SILVER LUSTRE WARE.
Coffee Pot. Basin. Teapot.
The Staffordshire potter's imitation of silver.]
[Illustration: GLASS CANDLESTICKS.
Late eighteenth century.]
It is thus evident that baser metals had from time immemorial been
plated with silver, and, given an unprotected public, many such frauds
could be perpetrated by skilful and unscrupulous craftsmen. In fact
they were perpetrated. In 1767 a working silversmith was prosecuted by
indictment upon Stat. XXVIII Edward I and Stat. VI George I, cap. 11
for soldering bits of standard silver to tea-tongs and shoe-buckles
which were worse than standard and sending the same to the Goldsmiths'
Company Assay Office at London in order fraudulently to obtain their
marks to the same. In France from 1753 to 1759 a set of regulations
to be observed by silversmiths in the profession of their art enacts
that "They shall not make the rims turned over full of solder, in form
of hammered edges to basins, dishes and plates; nor shall they under
pretext of joining, solder on to them other bottoms."
The methods employed prior to the invention of the plating by fusion
and rolling in sheets at Sheffield was known as French plating.
Throughout the eighteenth century clock cases were silvered by this
method, and successive layers of silver could be applied to any
thickness required.
=Silver Platers at Sheffield.=--The platers set out frankly as a
school of copyists to imitate silver plate. They laid a thin imposition
of silver on copper and rolled it and dealt with the sheets as if
they were solid silver. They suffered from many disadvantages which
they eventually overcame; they competed directly, and more directly,
than did the Staffordshire potters with the silversmiths. The potter
snatched the silver models and so did they. But he had less reason
than they because he left his proper technique as a worker in clay
in so doing. It was no new thing to plate baser metals with silver
or with gold. But the method by which it was accomplished and the
rolled-out sheets were new. To rush into a general industry to expend
great capital on it, to launch it on the market, to compete with the
richest and closest corporation of goldsmiths in the world, was a new
and audacious venture, and this Sheffield did, and the designs partook
of the character of the finest produced by the experienced workers in
silver plate.
It is an incongruous situation wherein this school of imitators, who
set out diffidently to simulate silver and were presently met by
severe statutes of the realm and with severe penalties for producing
marks simulating those of the assay offices, overrode the tide that
set against them and were finally acknowledged by statute as genuine
craftsmen to be protected in a great industry, and Sheffield obtained
an assay office of her own, with overlordship over her platers.
In comparison with the other assay offices both Sheffield and
Birmingham own titles which seem to convey that the assay offices
came into being as a protective measure; they were to be watch-dogs
over the silver platers in their district. In 1773 there were, among
others, the "Wardens and Commonalty of the Mystery of Goldsmiths of
the City of London," the "Incorporation of Goldsmiths" of Edinburgh,
and the "Fraternity or Company of Goldsmiths" of Dublin. But the
assay offices established at Sheffield and Birmingham were to be "The
Guardians of the Standard of Wrought Plate," which is suggestive in the
circumstances.
Competitive rivalry in art has often ended in the undoing of a
particular school where imitation was pushed to fulsome lengths.
When the wood engraver simulated the actual cracks in the canvases
of the subjects he was copying on his block he showed a decadence
which shortly led to his extinction. But the Sheffield platers never
added blemishes of their own to the silver they copied. They produced
faithful copies. They selected fine examples and they stood supreme
in what they set out to do, until, by a later process, they were
superseded.
II
EARLY DAYS
THE INVENTION OF SILVER PLATING BY FUSION
THOMAS BOULSOVER OF SHEFFIELD (1704-1788)
A WORLD OF KNICK-KNACKS
THE SHEFFIELD SILVER-PLATING PROCESS
EARLY SHEFFIELD PLATED PRODUCTIONS
JOSEPH HANCOCK
THE RISE OF THE BIRMINGHAM AND OTHER SILVER PLATERS
THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE GREAT PERIOD OF SHEFFIELD PLATING
CONTEMPORARY SILVERSMITHS AND THEIR ART