Description:
Fused or Sheffield silver-plated, pear-shaped coffeepot with a pineapple finial over a stepped domed cover; a S-shaped spout die-stamped with acanthus leaves; a gradrooned edge around the rim of the cover and edge of the footed base; and a scrolled pearwood handle. There are three unidentified marks near the rim. During the early years of the fused plate industry from 1750-1770, makers used devices of their own as marks, some of which looked deceptively like silver marks, especially when marked three or four times in a row and then partially obliterated. The Act of 1773 established an assay office for silver in Sheffield, and provided that no article in which silver was used, if it were not solid silver, could bear a device resembling a mark on silver. In 1784, a further act decreed that the platers could register a device, but it was not to suggest a silver mark; however platers were not compelled to use marks and did not always comply.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+79.005 |
