Edward Alfred Jones

“ Occasionally one sees traces of the ancient Mycenaean influence, or perhaps rather of the young Ionian art which had now arisen out of the ashes of that of Mycenae. These Phoenician imitative designs are still good imitations. But a century or so later we meet with them again on the silver bowls and dishes from Cyprus, in which the imitations have become bad. The same mixture of subjects was still in vogue, but confusion has been superadded to mixture, and we find kings in Assyrian robes and Egyptian wigs slaying Syrian dragons with Egyptian wings, and so on. ”

“ The caliphs of Bagdad, the sultans of Egypt, and other Moslem rulers were once famed for their rich stores of plate, which was probably of extreme beauty both in design and workmanship. Little or nothing of this Moslem plate now remains, and it is only possible to judge of its style and magnificence from the fine works in brass and other less valuable metals which have survived to our time.
Towards the end of the 10th century the Rhine valley became the centre of a school of goldsmiths, who produced splendid examples of their work—a mixture of Byzantine art with their own original designs. ”

“ In the 15th century a large quantity of secular plate was produced of beautiful design and skilful workmanship. Tall covered cups on stems, modelled with a series of bosses something like a pineapple, beakers and tankards, enriched with Gothic cresting and foliage, are among the most important pieces of plate. During the 16th century Augsburg and Nuremberg, long celebrated for their silver work, developed a school of craftsmen whose splendid productions have often been ascribed to the great Cellini himself. ”

“ Those which still exist show a curious mingling of ancient Assyrian art with that of Rome in its decline. Reliefs representing winged lions, or the sacred tree between its attendant beasts alternate with subjects from Roman mythology, such as the rape of Ganymede; but all are treated alike with much originality, and in a highly decorative manner. A fine example of Persian work of the early 19th century (dated 1817) is the circular gold dish, richly enamelled, which is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, where a large collection of Oriental plate may be studied. ”

“ Tibetan craftsmen work is represented by numerous vessels for sacred and domestic purposes, mostly of metal, partially mounted in silver, which display the skill of the Tibetans in the 19th century. Of the skill of the Hindus as goldsmiths, abundant evidence is afforded by the Ramayana and Mahābhārata, though very little of their ancient gold and silver work has survived. In India the people of the Cashmere valley have long been famous for their natural superiority as craftsmen, as was Lucknow for its utensils of gold and silver, much of it richly enamelled in the 18th and 19th centuries. ”

“ The use of silver appears to belong to a rather later period, probably because, though a widely spread metal in almost all parts of the world, it is usually found in a less pure state than gold, and requires some skill to smelt and refine it. Though both these precious metals were largely and skilfully used by prehistoric races, they were generally employed as personal ornaments or decorations for weapons. Except in Scandinavian countries, but little that can be called “plate” has been discovered in the early barrows of the prehistoric period in western Europe. ”

“ Russia.—In no country is the ecclesiastical and secular plate of greater interest than in Russia, where so many different influences have been at work in its designs and decoration-Byzantine, Oriental, Gothic, Renaissance, &c. The “golden age” of ecclesiastical art was undoubtedly the 17th century, when the churches and monasteries were being enriched with many priceless ornaments in the precious metals. ”

“ The art of the “Minoan” and “Mycenaean” goldsmiths exercised considerable influence upon that of the Egyptians; under the XXth Dynasty, about 1150 B.C., we find depicted on the tomb of Rameses III. golden stirrup-vases (Bügelkannen) of the well known Mycenaean type, and in that of Imadua, an onicer of Rameses IX., golden vases imitating the ancient Cretan shape of the cups of Vaphio. In fact, it is more than probable that the Egyptians and Phoenicians manufactured plate of “Minoan” and “Mycenaean” types long after the ancient culture of Crete and the Aegean had come to an end. ”

“ Anglo-Saxon.—Judged by the examples of Anglo-Saxon jewelry discovered, the Anglo-Saxon craftsmen brought their art to a high state of perfection, though hardly equal in merit to the Celtic. A large quantity of their metal-work is of bronze, frequently enriched with gold and enamel. Happily, there is preserved one priceless specimen of the goldsmith’s art of this period—namely, the famous Alfred jewel of gold, now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, with a portrait, believed to be of Alfred the Great, in cloisonné enamel. Another notable specimen is the Ethelwulf ring in the British Museum. ”

“ Owing to the Egyptian practice of burying with their dead personal ornaments and jewelry, rather than other possessions less intimately connected with the person of the deceased, but few specimens of either gold or silver plate have survived to our times, whereas the amount of gold jewelry that has been discovered is very large, and shows the highest degree of skill in working the precious metals. ”

“ A splendid bronze bowl, which shows us what some of the finer gold and silver plate was like, was found in the tomb of Hetaai, a dignitary of the XVIIIth Dynasty, at Thebes a few years ago, and is now in the Cairo Museum (No. 3553 in von Bissing's catalogue) . The engraved decoration, representing birds and animals in the papyrus-marshes, is very fine and evidently of native Egyptian work. ”

“ So generally was metal used for vases that even as early as the “Middle Minoan” period of Cretan art (some 2000 years B.C.) the pottery forms are obvious imitations of metal-work. The art of the metal-worker dominated and influenced that of the potter, a circumstance rarely noted in Egypt, where, in all probability, the toreutic art was never so much patronized as in Minoan Greece, although beautiful specimens of plate were produced by Egyptian and Phoenician artists. ”

“ The other most important pieces of silver work in Italy are the frontal and retable of St James in the cathedral at Pistoia [21] and the altar of San Giovanni at Florence. On these two works were employed a whole series of the chief Tuscan artists of the 14th and 15th centuries, many of whom, though of great reputation in other branches of art, such as painting, sculpture on a large scale, and architecture, did not disdain to devote their utmost skill and years of labour, to work which we now as a rule consign to craftsmen of the very smallest capacity. ”

“ In the best times of Greek art the chief works in gold and silver seem to have been dedicated to religious purposes, and to have been seldom used for the ostentation of private individuals. Vessels for the use of the temples, tripods in gold or silver of the richest work, and statues of the gods were the chief objects on which the precious metals were lavished. [1]
Fig. 5.—Greek Silver Vase, 4th century B.C., from South Russia. ”

“ Modern Plate in the East.—Though little plate of real artistic merit is now made in Europe, in the East among the Moslem and Hindu races there still survive some real taste in design and skill in execution. Delhi, Benares, Lucknow, Cutch and other places in India and Kashmir still produce a quantity of beautiful silver and gold work—chiefly ewers, basins, rose-water sprinklers, salvers, coffee-pots and the like. These are of graceful form, covered with rich repoussé work, or more often with very delicate chased patterns. ”

“ In the 17th century ecclesiastical vessels encrusted with corals are met with, such as those given by Michael Wisniowiecki, king of Poland, to the church of Czeustochowa. A magnificent 17th-century chalice of gold, beautifully enamelled, given by the bishop of Plock and Breslau, son of Sigismund III., is in Plock cathedral. Many important pieces of plate still exist in churches in Poland, though a Polish origin is not claimed for them; for instance, the 10th-century chalice at Trzemeszno, where there is also another chalice of about the same period. ”

“ The fragment of a silver vase with a scene in high relief of slingers and bowmen defending their town against besiegers from grave 4 (Plate I., fig. 22) , is an object unrivalled in ancient art. On this, as on the bull's head, we have gold overlaid on silver (with an intermediate plating of copper) ; on a silver cup from the same grave we find gold inlay, and on another silver cup, from a chamber-tomb, enamel and gold inlaid. ”

“ The British Museum possesses a fine collection of these bowls, mostly found in the palace at Nimrud, and so dating from the 9th and 8th centuries (reigns of Assur-nazir-pal to Sargon) . Though they are made of bronze, and only occasionally ornamented with a few silver studs, they are evidently the production of artists who were accustomed to work in the precious metals, some of them in fact being almost identical in form and design with the silver phialae found at Curium and elsewhere in Cyprus. ”

“ Thutii's bowl is a typical specimen of the Egyptian plate of the XVIIIth Dynasty, and its design is precisely that of the hundreds of blue glazed faience bowls which were made at the time, and of which some perfect specimens and many fragments (especially from Deir el-Bahri) are in our museums. These were imitated from metal originals, just as most of the early Cretan pottery vessels were. ”

“ In like manner, during the Saxon period, though gold and silver jewelry was common, yet little plate appears to have been made, with the exception of shrines, altar-frontals and vessels for ecclesiastical use, of which every important church in England must have possessed a magnificent stock. With regard to English secular plate, though but few early examples still exist, we know from various records, such as wills and inventories, that the 14th century was one in which every rich lord or burgher prided himself on his fine and massive collection of silver vessels ”

“ Secular plate during the 15th and 16th centuries was frequently similar in style to that made in Germany, though the English silversmiths of the latter century never quite equalled the skill or artistic talent of the great Nuremberg and Augsburg silver-workers. ”

“ We possess in our museums unrivalled treasures of ancient toreutic art in the precious metals from Greece, which date from about 2500 to 1400 B.C., and as far as mass and weight of gold are concerned are rivalled only by the Scythian finds. ”

“ Several Tudor cups are in existence: the celebrated one of 1521 (Plate II., fig. 30) , an earlier one, 1500, two covered ones of about 1510 and 1512 at Sandwich and Wymeswold, respectively; one (1515) at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and the Bodkin cup (1525) of the Corporation of Portsmouth. A very early beaker (1496) is in a private collection, as is also a small Tudor bowl (1525-1526) . The earliest known chalices of silver include the Gourdon chalice and paten, the St Gozlin chalice at Nancy (10th century) ; the 12th-century specimen in the abbey of Wilten in Tirol. ”

“ Fine examples of Carlovingian work, which was mainly wrought in the monasteries in the north of the Frankish dominions and on the Rhine, may be studied in the covers for the Gospels, in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. In 1837 a large number of pieces of very massive gold plate were found at Petrossa in Rumania, much of this find was unfortunately broken up and melted, but a considerable portion was saved, and is now in the museum at Bucharest. ”

“ In the first decade of the 16th century, Paul Müllner, a Nuremberg goldsmith, furnished Frederick the Wise with several silver-gilt reliquaries for his collection at Wittenberg. Later in the same century came the Jamnitzer family of Nuremberg, chief among them being Wentzel Jamnitzer, one of whose masterpieces, an enamelled silver centre-piece, belongs to the baroness James de Rothschild of Paris. Mathaeus Wallbaum of Augsburg was another celebrated goldsmith of the 16th century. ”

“ This class of work is not a revival, but has been practised and handed down by unbroken tradition, and with little or no change in style from the 16th century or even earlier. [2] The silversmiths of Persia, Damascus and other Eastern places are still skilful, and retain some good tradition in their designs. They are, however, more occupied in the production of personal ornaments than in making larger works of silver or gold.
Authorities.—Scandinavian and Celtic Plate.—Worsaae, Primeval Antiquities of Denmark (1849) ”

“ These magnificent objects are all of solid gold, and consist of large dishes, vases, ewers, baskets of open work, and personal ornaments (fig. 11) . Some of them show a strong Roman influence in their design, others are more purely barbaric in style. To the first of these classes belongs a very line phiale or patera, 10 in. in diameter. In the centre is a seated statuette of a goddess, holding a cup, while all round, in high relief, are standing figures of various male and female deities, purely Roman in style. ”

“ Considerable quantities of plate were produced at Amsterdam (where Johann Lutma the elder—d. 1669—was a well-known silversmith) , Haarlem, the Hague and many other places The numerous 17th-century Dutch pictures of still-life and other subjects afford opportunities for the study of tazze, beakers and other domestic vessels in silver. Hendrik Janssens, a Dutch engraver of about 1640, executed many designs for goldsmiths and jewellers. ”