Silver plate

“ The English silversmiths of this period were highly skilled in their art, and produced objects of great beauty both in design and workmanship. One of the finest specimens of Edward III.'s plate which still exists is a silver cup belonging to the mayor and corporation of King's Lynn. It is graceful and chalice-like in form, skilfully chased, and decorated in a very rich and elaborate way with coloured translucent enamels (fig. 16) of ladies and youths, several with hawks on their wrists. Silver salt-cellars were among the most elaborate pieces of plate produced during the 15th century. ”

“ Octavius Morgan, the pioneer of the study of hall-marks, says in 1852: “Every person who is possessed of an article of gold or silver plate has most probably observed a small group of marks stamped on some part of it. Few however have, I believe, regarded them in any other light than as a proof that the article so marked is made of the metal which it professes to be, and that the metal itself is of a certain purity. ”

“ The point arises as to whether the Sheffield platers themselves made these slight variations in design, adding here a piece of chasing and there a chain of festoons, each article having this slight variation from its fellow, or whether they were actually following the silversmiths' designs in silver plate where similar variations may have been made. We do not know. It is a moot point. If we cannot find in silver, and examples have not always been found to agree exactly with Sheffield plate reproductions, all that we know Sheffield produced we are on the horns of a dilemma. ”

“ With old china, and probably with old furniture, the taste for collecting is oftentimes an acquired one, but it is in the Englishman’s blood to ruminate over his old plate, and the hall-marks of the assay offices in London and in the provinces, in Scotland and in Ireland, have been placed thereon with aforethought. The plate closet is cousin to the strong-box, inasmuch as the coin of the realm and gold and silver plate have been subjected to stringent laws extending over a period of five hundred years. ”

“ Our standard silver is composed of somewhat more than 121⁄4 parts of pure metal and one part of copper; and the metal of this standard is used, both for silver plate, and in the coinage. The mark or stamp which is given to it at Goldsmiths’ Hall is similar to that which has been explained for sterling gold.
After platina (226) and gold (227) , silver is considered the most unchangeable of all metals. The air does not easily act upon its surface in such manner as to injure it ”

“ 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. ”

“ But whereas silver plate was accurately dated when it bore the stamp of the annual date letter, wherever made, Sheffield plated ware cannot offer this exactitude.
Marks when found are useful as indicating the initials of old firms who have manufactured plate from the earliest period and are still in business. But many of the marks were used over a long period and only by comparison with silver prototypes can dates be arrived at. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In like manner with gold, the silver is introduced both dead and burnished, and forms a pleasing and marvellously rich combination with gold and colour. It is introduced on tea services in bands upon wreaths of flowers, and other decorations are painted with marked effect. One of the finest and most chastely beautiful of the ceramic productions of this or any other age or country is an open-work plate in which solid silver forms the ground for the centre. ”

“ He did so, placing a silver plate upon a small standard and pouring upon the plate a small quantity of pink powder which was contained in a crystal vial. Then he muttered a rather difficult incantation which the sorceress Glinda the Good had taught him, and it all ended in a puff of perfumed smoke from the silver plate. ”

“ But the result was to aim a blow at collecting Sheffield plate, and to create many a hiatus which collectors find to their chagrin to-day.
The Passing of the Dinner Table.—With all due respect to modernity there is in middle-class households still to be observed an absence of taste in silver. There is silver present and enough of it. But not sufficient care has been paid to studying the fine forms and the exquisite creations of former generations of English silversmiths. Now and again great surprise is expressed at big prices realized at Christie's or elsewhere for fine specimens of plate. ”

“ The oval bases and the touch of floriate ornament under the nozzle urns have their indicative note. It will be observed that the camera, with more penetration than the human eye, has brought out the thinness of the plate, and it is here represented in the illustration. It denotes perhaps less of a delinquency on the part of the plater or a flaw in his technique than a grave indictment against generations of housemaids who have used metal polish which contained mercury or some other noxious compound inimical to the longevity of the superimposed silver. ”

“ What is called French plate is made by heating copper, or more frequently, brass, to a certain degree, then applying leaf-silver to the surface, and strongly rubbing it with a burnisher. The durability of this plating depends of course on the number of leaves which are applied on a given surface. For ornaments that are not much used ten leaves may be sufficient; but a hundred will not last long, if the metal be exposed to frequent handling or washing. ”

“ Plated articles require even more care than silver ones; they should be cleaned with soft brushes, not too often, and never with any thing but plate powder, not even whiting by itself; do not wet them more than can be helped or they will tarnish; nor brush them more than is necessary, or the silver will come off; the best thing for them is spirit of wine or oil, and take care that no plated articles remain long dirty or damp, for if they do they will rust, in case they are plated on steel, and canker if plated on copper. ”

“ The drawing through a succession of holes produces an edge upon the silver coming against the flat side of the aperture in the draw-plate which overlaps the zinc and thus holds it securely in its place. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The bell is truly a mountain of metal. It is said to contain a very large proportion of gold and silver. While it was in fusion, the nobles and the people cast in, as votive offerings, their plate and money: I endeavoured in vain to assay a small part: the natives regard it with superstitious veneration, and they would not allow even a grain to be filed off. At the same time, it may be said, the compound has a white shining appearance, unlike bell-metal in general; and, perhaps, its silvery aspect has strengthened, if not excited, a conjecture respecting the costliness of its constituents. ”

“ In regard to plating on copper or any other baser metal the worker can employ silver in any proportion he may desire. But he is required by law "to place upon each of his works his own punch determined by the Mint (as stated in article above quoted) . He shall also add to the stamp numerals indicating the quantity of silver contained in his work, on which also shall be impressed in full the word doublé." And this is exactly what the French craftsmen have done as shown by the illustrated marks given in Appendix (p. 291) . ”

“ Where the daylight was strongest, the sensitive coating of the plate has undergone such a chemical change, that the mercury penetrates readily to the silver, producing a minute white granular deposit upon it, like a very thin fall of snow, drifted by the wind. The strong lights are little heaps of these granules, the middle lights thinner sheets of them; the shades are formed by the dark silver itself, thinly sprinkled only, as the earth shows with a few scattered snow-flakes on its surface. ”

“ It seems unfair to British manufacturers that foreign silver is assayed here for competitive sale with home manufactured plate; it bears the time-honoured symbols that have been used in this country for four hundred years. ”

“ Apart from the fact that silver thus treated always presents a bright and well-preserved appearance, there is the further consideration of the silver being kept in good condition without a frequent application of plate powder, which, however fine it may be, ultimately destroys the plated surface. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whichever of these methods you adopt, as soon as the silver is united to the iron, you must then at once proceed to polish it, which is done by taking a piece of coarse cloth, dipping it in whiting, previously dampened with alcohol, and rubbing it over the surface until it is well polished. If at any time, as sometimes will happen, the plate of silver becomes stained so that you cannot polish it, wet it with the fluid, put another plate of silver foil over it, and proceed to fasten it to the iron as you did with the first plate,then polish it with the whiting, &c. ”

“ Where the light has acted upon the sensitive silver compounds and you proceed to develop the picture, when you mix the sulphate of iron and pour the developer upon the plate, as the iron comes in contact with the nitrate of silver, with which the plate is wet, it produces metallic silver, which adheres to those parts of the picture which have been acted upon by the light. ”

“ But at Sheffield and Birmingham, all plate is now produced by rolling ingots of copper and silver together. About the eighth of an inch in thickness of silver is united by heat to an inch of copper in ingots about the size of a brick. It is then flattened by steel rollers worked by an eighty horse power. The greater malleability of the silver occasions it to spread equally with the copper into a sheet of any required thickness, according to the nature of the article for which it is wanted. ”

“ On the back of this plate are five letters, either in the Phœnician or Assyrian cursive character.
Nos. 7. and 8.; covered with groups of small stags, surrounding an elaborate star, one plate containing above 600 figures; the animals are formed by three blows from a blunt instrument or punch. These plates are ornamented with small bosses of silver and gold let into the copper.
No. 9., diameter, 75⁄8 inches; depth, 11⁄2 inch, of fine workmanship; the centre formed by an incised star, surrounded by guilloche and tulip bands. ”

“ Place the plate on its stand, or hold it in the plyers, in a perfectly horizontal position--silver surface upward--having previously slightly turned up the edges, so that it may hold the solution. Wet the surface with alcohol, letting any superfluous quantity drain off. The alcohol is of no farther use than to facilitate the flowing of the gold mixture over the surface. Now pour on, carefully, as much of the preparation of gold as will remain on the plate. The under part of the plate is then to be heated as uniformly as possible with the spirit lamp ”

“ In 1656 a fisherman on the banks of the Rhone, in the neighborhood of Avignon, drew to shore in his net a round substance in the shape of a large plate, thickly encrusted with a coat of hardened mud. A silversmith who happened to be present bought it for a trifling sum. He took it home, and upon cleaning and polishing it, found it to consist of pure silver, perfectly round, more than two feet in diameter, and weighing upwards of twenty pounds. ”