Description:
One of a set of ten two-tine steel forks (and twelve knives) fitted with wrythen (spirally twisted) silver and turquoise enamel over copper sheath handles fitted with silver ferrules and caps. The enamel is a glass-like composition inlaid as a powder, which fuses after being fired in a kiln. The silver wire twisted around the handle adds both decoration and support. Specialising in making blades, cutlers trained as apprentices for up to seven years, working for a freeman cutler who housed and fed them. In England a cutler would have to prove himself as bladesmith and hafter (maker of handles) in order to obtain the freedom of the Worshipful Company of Cutlers, gain his own mark and set up his own business. Many cutlers acted as middlemen who bought blades from bladesmiths, handles from hafters and sheaths from sheathers. They assembled the cutlery themselves and sold them under their own names.
Subjects:
Copper; Enamel and enameling Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+56.417.2 |
