For anyone wishing to add a little silver-related fiction to their reading list, this post features a running list of suggestions. Do get in touch if you have any recommendations or would like to see your novel featured! Argentum by James Leslie-Melville (The Book Guild, 2023) The Silversmith's Daughter by Annie Murray (Pan, 2019) The Silversmith's Wife by Sophia Tobin (Simon & Schuster, 2014)
£35.00 Click here to buy now. JOHN ANDREW and THERESA NGUYEN The Meadow Centrepiece MARK DENNIS The Doyle Cups: a Biography in Silver ROBIN JACKSON The Silversmithing Work of the German Expressionist Artist Hermann Gross in Scotland LAURENCE JOYCE and WYNYARD WILKISON Alexander Johston, Goldsmith of Dundee and London ELSABETH ALICIA DIKKES The Life of a Silver Spoon: a Curious Piece of Washington Silver ROGER ROSEWELL Silver and Stained Glass JOHN CULME The Duke of Sussex's Wine Cistern: a Mystery Solved REBECCA HARVEY and KIMBERLEY CAMERON "For better, for worse": Louis Osman and Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire, 1968-1980 ANDREW PAUL WOOD History in Silver: What Three Silver Centrepieces from Evolution of New Zealand Taste and Identity. LUKE DELMAS and LUKE SCHRAGER Private Die-Struck Heraldic Flatware 1780-1900 EMILIA FERRARO, SANDRA WILSON and KATHARINA VONES Metalwork in the Andes and Japan: a Comparative Study VANESSA BRETT A Bank Account for Simon Pantin I ADRIAN MALDONADO and SARAH ROTHWELL Experiment, Experience and Enchant: Knowledge Sharing Between Museums [Read More]
This hardback informative reference book is for those interested in fraud relating to silverware and precious metals, and tells the story of the enforcement of hallmarking legislation. The story of hallmarking is told from a unique perspective, through historical facts, literature, poetry, prose, film, and song. The book is comprised of: 628 pages. 149 photographs. a schedule of historical milestones regarding hallmarking. detailed coverage of some specific prosecution cases. a comprehensive index of more than 600 court cases. The book is £35 and the link to their website is https://www.hswalsh.com/product/touchstone-trade-and-transgression-by-robert-grice-tb1700
The Silver Society has been working on a new website since the middle of last year and we are delighted to have now launched it from February. We hope you like it. Do please contact us if you have any comments or suggestions. The intention is that this new site will be easier to use and better convey the authority and status of the Society. The new site also now hosts the archive of all the Silver Society Journals up to 2019. These have been digitised and are in a searchable database which we think will be a major resource for all those researching silver in the future. We plan to further develop and enrich the site during 2023.
We are very please to announce the winner is CAIYANG YIN for his Scream Box The Scream Box, made in fine silver and sterling silver and marked for 2022, is the first piece of silverware, as opposed to jewellery, that Caiyang has made. The cover of the handmade box involved chasing and repoussé work. Scream Box by Caiyang Yin The judges said: we were very impressed with Caiyang’s silver Scream Box, it is a very contemporary design and it has great originality. The square silver box decorated with a man’s emotional face, has a highly sculptural aesthetic and demonstrates a unique style. To make a square box is one of the most basic silversmithing skills, but it is challenging to achieve, requiring great accuracy and control. Caiyang’s box is very professionally made and extremely well finished. The box can be seen in this video https://youtu.be/vxPH8faCj0Q and other examples of Caiyang’s work can be seen on his website https://www.ycyjewel.com/ Caiyang, who trained in the design [Read More]
6 October 2022 Despite complications caused by rail strikes a small group made it to Mount Stuart, the extraordinary house designed for the 3rd Marquess of Bute by Robert Rowand Anderson, the interiors of which were in fact never completed after the death of the Marquess. The morning was taken up with a tour of the house, with its views across the Clyde although somewhat shrouded in rain clouds, with its myriad interior details such as the door furniture, light fittings and tapestries, as well as a fine display of Scottish eighteenth-century silver in the dining room. The interiors were enhanced at a later date by carefully considered additions to some of the decorative schemes made by 6th Marquess of Bute. Cover of Lord Bute’s water bottle, London, 1880, by Jess Barkentin and Carl Krall, silver-gilt and enamel In the afternoon we were given a tour by Jessica Insley, Curator of the collections, of the small but remarkable exhibition Fantasy to Fabrication, 19th century design at Mount [Read More]
The visit was attended by seventeen members. On arrival at the Hall we were greeted by the Beadle, who gave us an introduction to the history of the Company and some of its treasures. Following the Civil War and the Fire of London which destroyed the first Hall, the Company embarked on a policy of replacing silver which had been sequestered during the Civil War and those pieces destroyed in the fire by purchasing silver and encouraging their members to donate plate to the Company. We were able to handle a large number of wonderful 18th and 19th century objects. A modern highlight included a most unusual silver fair ground centre piece with eight horses which turns on a smooth axis, commissioned in 1989 by the Master from Sarah Silver.
Adi Toch, in conversation with Jessica Eddie, gave a fascinating insight into her working processes during the commissioning, designing and making of the gold piece, Place to Place, made for the Gilbert Collection at the V&A, in response to the return to Turkey, in 2021, of an Anatolian gold ewer.
CHARISSA BREMER-DAVID, JESSICA CHASEN, ARLEN HEGINBOTHAM, JULIE WOLFE Published by Getty Publications and Yale University Press, paperback, ISBN: 9781606068281 216 pp, 277 colour illustrations and 4 tables Publication date: April 2023 Members of the Silver Society have been offered a generous discount of 20% on the publication price on the above publication, the first complete study of the French seventeenth- and eighteenth-century silver at the J. Paul Getty Museum, to be published in April 2023. With the generous number of images each piece in the collection will be brought into focus in extraordinary detail including makers’ marks, inscriptions and armorials. The entries catalogue a total of thirty-three pieces and give descriptions, provenance, exhibition history and technical information and the publication also discusses the formation of the collection. There are biographies of the makers and a full bibliography. Copies may be ordered using the following codes and links: US and Canada: GPFS23 https://shop.getty.edu/ The offer is available from I January to 30 April 2023 Rest [Read More]
Museum im Prediger, Schwäbisch Gmünd 23 October 2022 – 10 April 2023 (Catalogue in German and English, Euros 39, editor Max Tillmann ISBN 978-3936988-39-0) The exhibition celebrates the centenary of the Research Institute for Precious Metals & Metal Chemistry (Forschungsinstitut Edelmetalle & Metallchemie) (FEM) in Schwäbische Gmünd in 1922 and its successful collaboration with the city’s kunstgewerbermuseum (now the Prediger Museum), founded in 1876 to collect models for the city’s thriving goldsmiths’ trade, and the regional gewerbeschule or trade school, specialising in precious metals, in 1860. Over 80 works of art are displayed in different contexts. There are masterpieces from the Prediger’s own permanent and long-term loan collection (including the 6ft high Immaculate Conception by Franz Anton Lang (Augsburg, 1755) from the Holy Cross Minster) as well as productions by Gmund craftsmen. Thematic displays follow, with juxtapositions illustrating forms, techniques, decoration, and finishes, discussed in aesthetic and technical contexts. Effects of colour, light and shade are all explored. The work of FEM in developing [Read More]
