Interestingly, the same newspaper carried a report of how a judge ordered a group of Suffragettes on trial to remove their hatpins in court, fearing they could be used as weapons.

See a slideshow of Charles Horner hatpins Images courtesy of Charles Horner of Halifax by Tom J. Lawson, published by GML Publishing and distributed by the Antique Collectors’ Club Ltd., which supplied them.

By now off on a completely wrong tangent, I learned from another report, dated December 17, 1908, how a woman lost her sight in one eye after an accident in the rush on the first day of a shop

sale, while in April, 1913, the New York Times published a letter from a man who had contracted blood poisoning from a wound inflicted by a hatpin.

At one point the authorities in Berlin banned over long hatpins and other cities in Europe and America followed suit.

Byelaws were introduced prohibiting the wearing of hatpins not fitted with safety guards to cover the sharp end and police forces were mobilised to enforce the law.

Not surprisingly, hatpins also came to be recognised as a useful aid to self-defence. Nowadays, they are quirky, often beautiful, collectors’ items that recall the days when big hair and equally big hats were de rigueur.

Up until the Regency period, ladies secured their hats – usually sensible affairs with tasteful

frills – with ribbons, those imported from France being considered the most fetching.

In the 1820s and 30s, hats were still of a manageable size and small decorative hatpins were used unobtrusively to keep them in place.

But by the late Victorian period, hats began to grow, eventually to gargantuan proportions.

Two things quickly became vital additions to a woman’s wardrobe: one was sufficient hair – either her own or someone else’s in the form of a wig – with which to support the hat, the other, long hatpins with which to secure it.

The hatpin’s heyday was the Edwardian era, though. Lillie Langtry and other musical hall stars prompted ludicrously large creations and the bigger the hat, the longer the pin – sometimes as long as 14 inches.

The hatpin’s heyday was a brief affair. By 1920, most modern women had bobbed their hair and the need for pins in cloche hats was minimal.

Ordinary black glass-topped pins which were bought in packets could still be found, though their use was confined to the matriarchy.

However, in the intervening years, designers and manufacturers of hatpins allowed their imagination to run riot.

Thus, today’s collectors have much to pursue, providing their pockets are deep enough.

Time was when pretty Art Nouveau silver hat pins could be picked up for the proverbial fiver. Not any more.

You’d be doing extremely well if you found one for under £50, while top quality examples, perhaps set with a semi-precious stone can be twice, three or even four times the price.

There are cheaper, of course, with some late, glass and plastic-headed types to be had for under £1. But generally speaking, hatpins and the collecting of same is big business with its own international collectors’ club and dealers who specialise in nothing but the pins and the stands – novelty and serious – in which to stand and display them.

The period from 1900-1910 produced some of the most decorative silver hatpins, made at a time when Britain was enjoying the tail end of the Art Nouveau movement and the emergence of the Arts and Crafts school of design.

One of the most prolific manufacturers of the day was Charles Horner.
Horner was a native of Halifax in Yorkshire who, in the mid-1850s, ran a retail watchmaking and jewellery business.

He died in 1896, leaving a large family including six sons, two of whom, James Dobson Horner and C. Harry Horner, built a new factory in the town to produce large quantities of relatively inexpensive gold and silver jewellery, and fancy goods. Thimbles and hatpins were the mainstay.

Hallmark of Horner’s products was elegance, combined with fluid and sensuous shape and line which was so indicative of the period.

Always highly ornamental, hatpins come in a wide variety of shapes and in many other mediums other than silver.

One favourite among today’s collectors is Whitby jet, so loved by Queen Victoria who made mourning a national pastime.

Look also for so-called French jet, the posh name for black glass cut in Whitby styles.

Sporty types had hatpins that represented their particular game: tiny tennis rackets, fox’s head, roller skates, or golf clubs, for example.

Favourite dogs were another choice, while one of my favourites are those sent home to mothers, wives and sweethearts by soldiers during the First World War: a button from a tunic mounted on to a pin.

At the other end of the price range are Liberty and Co., examples and those in Japanese Satsuma earthenware.

And if you’re very rich, seek out the fabulous glass hatpins produced by French master craftsman Rene Lalique.

Examples the size of a milk bottle top moulded with emerald and jade green designs of flying moths or interlocking locusts fetch £1,500-2,000 in the saleroom.

The amazing thing about them is the way their iridescent colours flash as they catch the light. Imagine for a moment the magnificence of the hat that would have done them justice!

Pictures show, from top:

A particularly attractive Charles Horner hatpin modelled as a thistle with sensuous, art nouveau stem. The amethyst-coloured glass "flower" would have been moulded and then polished by hand

An advertisement from a trade catalogue showing some of the styles of hatpins available at the turn of the century. Note the golf club shaped examples on the bottom row

A group of silver hatpins by Charles Horner, decorated with paste thistles

You know the kind of things I mean. The Sunday colour supplements are full of them. Then I saw the massive centrepiece pictured here.

For a start, Devlin is primarily a designer, not a maker, and it was he who conceived this amazing, almost futuristic three-section candelabrum.

See a slidewho ow Devlin silver here.

A commission from none other than the late Duke and Duchess of Westminster,

the three massive silver and gilt candelabra have a total of 34 candle holders, the centre section alone measuring four feet across.

It was sold at Christie’s in June 2007 for an enlightening £45,600, more than twice the pre-sale low estimate. No wonder, as I learned later, that Stuart Devlin is regarded as a golden boy of the Goldsmiths’ Company. He was their Prime Warden from 1996-7.

It was them I turned to after seeing another candelabrum coming up for auction this week. A far more modest creation, it was designed as a group of 16 silver icicles, each topped by a candle sconce, arranged in three tiers and joined by pierced silver gilt panels.

Is it worth the £4,000-5,000 estimate? Emphatically yes, word has it that when it was purchased in the 1980s, the 122 ounces of Devlin design cost several times that amount.

Word also has it that interest in Devlin’s work is experiencing a renaissance. Prices are turning upward and now may well be the time to bag a bargain.

I’d assumed Devlin was British, but in fact, he was born in Geelong, Australia, in 1931 in the depths of the Great Depression. One of four boys, father was a self-employed painter and decorator and mother struggled to make ends meet.

At school, the boy elected to concentrate on “art metalwork” and subsequently won a scholarship to train to be an art teacher. He studied for three years, followed by a further two in an ecclesiastical silversmithing workshop, where he gained further experience.

His first job in education was at the age of 19, teaching metalwork to secondary school teachers who were themselves in training. In 1952, he began a five-year stint teaching art in Wangaratta, after which he obtained a post at a Melbourne college where he studied for a Diploma of Arts in gold and silversmithing.

The course should have lasted three years, full-time but he completed it in one, part-time, achieving the highest marks ever awarded.

On the strength of that, he was awarded three travelling scholarships, choosing to spend two years at the Royal College of Art in London.

The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths quickly spotted his talent. In an unprecedented step, they purchased most of the pieces he made during that time for their permanent collection and also gave him a major commission while still at college.

A table centrepiece to commemorate the Tercentenary of the Royal Society was the result, although a tall coffee service, without conventional handles, now in the Goldsmiths’ Company collection, was work which Devlin considered his best.

As a result of his extraordinary talents, he was awarded a further major fellowship by the Harkness Foundation of New York, which he won without going through the normal selection procedures.

He chose to spend his time at Columbia University, where he studied sculpture and had several one-man shows in New York, Sydney and London.

On completing his studies in 1962, Devlin returned to teaching art in Melbourne, practising his sculpture in his spare time. The following year he won a competition to design the first decimal coinage for Australia and since then has designed coinage and medallions for more than 30 countries.

He moved to London to live full-time in 1965, founding a small workshop in Clerkenwell. It was around then that silversmiths found the big manufacturing companies who had previously commission their designs were rapidly going out of business.

Consequently, instead of designing anonymously, they began to develop their own personal styles, marketing and retailing their products under their own names.

Devlin was in the vanguard of this movement and he began to develop intricate and highly successful limited edition products, notably his Christmas boxes and Easter eggs which have now become collectors’ items.

In his own words, he wanted them to "delight, surprise, intrigue and amuse" his patrons. They did, and Devlin’s name became well known in the top people’s stores.

In 1973, he made a special egg encrusted with carved amethyst violets and diamonds. It opened to show a tiny vase of flowers made from semiprecious stones and each year after that, he made another and another.

The 1974 egg contained an opal mosaic and in 1977, his Silver Jubilee egg was well received.

Asprey displayed a Devlin collection which sold out immediately and then Collingwoods of Conduit Street in London’s West End set aside an entire floor exclusively for his work.

Such was his success that in 1972, he opened his own gallery on the ground floor of his Clerkenwell workshop, employing nine craftsmen to work on his designs full-time.

However, the showroom quickly proved to be inadequate and after striking a deal with the Duke of Westminster, whose family had been patrons and supporters of his work for many years, Devlin was able to open his own retail premises across the street from Collingwoods.

His reputation continue to grow, coming to the attention of the Queen who gave him his first royal commission to design and make a cigar box as her wedding gift to the Crown Prince of Jordan.

He was granted the Royal Warrant of Appointment as Goldsmith and Jeweller to Her Majesty the Queen in 1982.

Interestingly, Devlin’s designs embrace furniture, interiors, jewellery, trophies, clocks, goblets, and insignia of all types. A mark of his work is the new techniques he introduced of producing silver with intricate and ornate carving and filigree, contrasted alongside textured surfaces quite unlike conventional finishes.

Devlin now works from home in Littlehampton, East Sussex using pioneering computer-aided design and sophisticated graphics. This enables his ideas to be realised and objects made in workshops around the country.

He said: “I hope that my work reflects four maxims: that the future is much more important than the past; that creativity is paramount; that skill is fundamental; and that the justification for being a goldsmith is to enrich the way people live and work.”

YOU’RE about as much use as a chocolate teapot! It’s a put-down that’s as old as the hills, but while teapots made from chocolate are as rare as rocking horse do-do, antiques related to the confection are still relatively plentiful.

Click here for a sweet slideshow

“Chocolate antiques” including 17th and 18th century Chinese pots for pouring the stuff and cups for drinking it, together with 19th and early 20th century English silver chocolate pots are sweet collectors’ items.

Chinese chocolate cups and pots are described as rare by Oriental specialist exhibitor

Catherine Hunt. She says: “The popularity of chocolate exploded across the West when the secret of the drink escaped from the Spanish. They originally brought it back from the New

World, and it was taken up by the French Court in the early 17th century. Chocolate houses opened in Paris and then London and the craze for this seductive drink swept Europe.

“Like tea, medicinal properties were attached to the drinking of chocolate, notably as a cure for all stomach ailments but also as an aphrodisiac, which made it particularly popular.

“The Chinese, who were making tea and coffee services, quickly added chocolate wares to their exports, and silver manufacturers also adapted their tea and coffee services to the new fashion”.

Chocolate, or Xocolatl, as the Aztecs called it, means food for the gods, or god’s food. The Aztecs and Mayans greatly prized the bitter drink as an aphrodisiac and the source of great energy.

The Spanish conquerors of South America did not like the bitter drink but found that by adding cane sugar, it was much more to their liking. When they returned to the Spanish court, the drink underwent more changes with the addition of vanilla and newly-discovered spices.

The chocolate drink soon became highly sought after by the Spanish aristocracy, and when it was transformed into a hot drink, its popularity spread even faster.

Spanish monks were given the task of processing the cocoa bean, which was imported from the new plantations that were established in the Spanish territory of the New World.

The monks were able to keep the secret of chocolate until the early part of the 17th century, when it was stolen and taken to France. At the French Court it became even more popular and was exported to Britain and the first of the chocolate houses soon opened in London.

So, what’s the difference between a chocolate pot and a coffee pot? Answer: it’s not a straightforward matter.

Silver pots present less of a problem. The silver chocolate pot has a hinged lid, or else a detachable flap or finial through which a rod, called a molinet, can be inserted to stir the chocolate sediment.

The molinet is generally made of wood with a terminal or knop in silver or ivory.

In ceramics, if truth be told, the two are indistinguishable.

But there was a time and we couldn’t get enough. Before the advent of refrigeration, pasteurisation and pressure cooking, packing food in salt was the only way to stop it going bad. Apparently, salt destroys the bacteria in meat, fish and vegetables, making its importance as a preservative vital to the community.

However, since this is a column for lovers of fine art and antiques, I’ll stop worrying about what’s for lunch and restrict my remarks to the impact the mineral has made on collecting over the centuries.

We’ve all heard the expression to be placed or be regarded as “below the salt”, but not everyone knows that it originates from the days when where you were seated at a banquet signified your position in the social pecking order. The rich and important sat towards the head of the table, while the also-rans found themselves way down the end, out of reach of the salt — once a scarce and valuable condiment intended for only the most important of guests.

In a further show of wealth, one’s host would serve the salt in a grandly decorated object known a neff. This is the name given to the vessel, usually made of silver and actually shaped like a ship, used in the later Middle Ages to also carry his lordship’s napkin, knife and spoon (no forks in those days).

By the 16th century, the neff had become a must-have ornament, particularly in Germany and Switzerland, by which time they had become accurate and highly detailed models of fully rigged sailing ships, decorated with enamels and silver gilt and populated by little silver figures of sailors climbing the rigging and sailing the ship across the table.

In Venice, mid-16th century craftsmen were making intricate examples in blown glass, while in Paris, the silversmith Henry Auguste made a magnificent silver gilt neff as part of a royal service to be used by Napoleon at a banquet held three days after his coronation in 1804. On the neff were placed the emperor’s cutlery and bread, while locked jars held salt, pepper and spices.

Mention of silver gilt leads me to another point: apart from making silver look like gold, it was found to be essential to gild the metal in order to prevent corrosion by the salt.

Today’s silver collectors will know exactly what I mean, while people like me who can only afford silver plate will rue the day that they ever put away their cruet sets before scrupulously cleaning up any salt left on the surface. The resulting black pockmarks of corrosion have a ruinous effect on value.

Pairs of pretty little shell-shaped silver salts, each with their own tiny spoon that usually come in fitted velvet-lined cases are almost always coated with gilding inside (or once were) for just this reason and care should be taken in their use and subsequent cleaning.

Corrosion is not a problem when it comes to glass salts. Charming pairs of old hand-cut Georgian and Victorian salts remain among the cheapest of all collectables, possibly because their use died out long ago. While it might cost £80 to 120 for something in silver, glass salts can often be purchased for under £25 and sometimes less than that.

Sadly, the same cannot be said for Georgian Irish glass salts, which sell for a premium because of their relative scarcity. Ireland began to emerge as an important glass producer in about 1780 when Britain relaxed the heavy taxes on glass made there while at the same time increasing the taxes imposed on glass made in England.

However, it is not easy to identify Irish glass, which is one of the reasons why it always costs more. Some pieces exhibit an obvious Irish style, and Irish glass tends to be heavier than its English equivalent, but neither can be regarded as a rule of thumb. Better to leave it to the experts or buy from sources where reputation is your guarantee.

The turned-over rim is one particular feature that is common to a great deal of Irish glass and is often also seen on bowls and vases, while a salt with a uniquely Irish design has a large boat shape and stands on a heavy triangular foot.

A good pair of Irish cut glass salts could set you back as much as a reasonable pair of English silver ones.

If all this is too expensive for your pocket, you could have great fun collecting sets of salt and pepper shakers ranging from seaside souvenirs, crude but colourful examples made in Occupied Japan and speciality stuff made from plastic and Bakelite. Prices usually only reach double figures and almost never three.

My own favourite is a pair modelled as auctioneer’s gavels and they take pride of place in my collection of real gavels. They cost me £5!

Picture shows: This superb German silver nef was made by Berthold Muller, the noted Nuremberg silversmith, much of whose output was imported to the UK. Modelled in the style of a 15th century three-masted ocean-going ship with figures in the crow’s nests and on the deck and a full complement of canon, the nef has the typical import marks required by law and the Chester hallmark for 1908. The wheeled base harks back to the days when the nef would be wheeled around the table carrying salt to each of the diners. Now more of a decorative item, this example is expected to sell for £1,000-1,500 in a Dreweatt Neate auction at Donnington Priory, Newbury, Berks on Wednesday July 7

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

Glazed to taste

There’s another way of collecting things connected with salt and one which I personally think is infinitely more interesting.

When I first heard the expression salt-glaze stoneware, never in my wildest imagination did I ever think the term should be taken literally. But it must.

Sometime during the second millennium, probably in China where all sorts are amazing things were happening while we were still living in caves, people were making pottery at temperatures so high that the clay fused together and made the body so hard that it would hold water.

It came to be known as stoneware (because it was stone-hard) and by the 13th century, the secret of its manufacture had reached Germany, where it was used to make bottles for the country’s wine industry.

The bottles were mostly grey or dark red and pretty dull. Whether by luck or design I’m not sure, but someone discovered that throwing handfuls of salt into the kiln at the right moment produced a vitreous vapour coating anything inside that it came into contact with.

Repeating the process sufficient times caused the coating to build into a thick colourless glaze, while at the same time acting with the oxides in the clay to produce pots of different colours and fascinating orange peel textures.

In 1693, John Dwight obtained a patent to produce stoneware at Fulham, while similar wares were being produced at other factories in London as well as in Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire.

Doulton later used salt-glaze stoneware to make drainpipes and sanitaryware and subsequently domestic pieces such as kitchen crockery, blacking pots and ink and ginger beer bottles. Eventually the made so much money they were able to employ studio potters to make decorative wares for the home.

Among the most popular were the so-called ‘Reform Bottles’ of the 1830s portraying William IV, Lord Grey, Brougham, Russell, and many other contemporary celebrities, while a group of salt-glazed vases exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851 launched a new fashion.

Artists such as the Barlow sisters, George Tinworth and, independently, the Martin brothers are now names etched on the brains of today’s collectors who pay handsomely for such unique finds and all of it worth its salt as you might say.

Picture shows: The Duke of Wellington captured in brown salt-glazed stoneware. The jug was made in Lambeth in about 1830

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

by Christopher Proudlove©

Fortunately for my bank manager, I don’t collect silver. If I did, the chance of finding – let alone affording – something made by Paul de Lamerie (1688-1751) is remote. One of the most celebrated and arguably greatest of all English gold and silversmiths, De Lamerie was a leading exponent of rococo style and his most exuberant pieces are today seen only in museums. So then, what are the chances of finding a piece by the man who taught him? I thought they were pretty slim, but I was wrong, more of which later.

As our politicians wrestle with the perceived problems of an influx of European refugees, it is interesting to note that De Lamerie was himself a second-generation Huguenot refugee, a victim of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, which drove his parents out of France to the safety of the Netherlands.

The edict was a decree of 1598 establishing that Catholics and Protestants could live and work side by side in France. It granted French Protestants – the Huguenots – their civil rights in a predominantly Catholic country and it succeeded in bringing peace and unity for many years.

However, Louis XIV renounced the edict and declared Protestantism illegal, so the Protestants fled. At a stroke, France lost many of its most skilled and hard-working individuals. An estimated 160,000 Huguenots travelled to such places as Switzerland, the US, Germany, Amsterdam and London which alone attracted some 50,000 immigrants. They were wig makers, hairdressers, boot and shoe makers, perfumers, jewellers, furriers and gunsmiths. The silversmiths among them brought sophisticated and advanced designs. They used a thicker silver and adorned it with higher and more elaborate relief and engraved decoration.

De Lamerie’s father, also Paul, was himself a minor aristocrat and on reaching the Netherlands, became an army officer in the service of William of Orange. His son was probably born there, but in 1689 the family left for London and by 1691 were living in Soho, the district having been taken over by French Huguenot refugees.

Though he went on to greatness, very little is known about the young Paul’s progress through what was an essentially closed profession. However, records at the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in London show an entry for August 6, 1703, in which the he apprentices himself to a Peter Plattell (sic) “Citizen and Goldsmith of London, for the term of seven years from this day”.

In addition to teaching the boy the technical skills of silversmithing, the Master also gave him the hand of one of his daughters

Platel, himself a Huguenot from an aristocratic family in Lorraine, had probably also been apprenticed in London and registered his mark at Goldsmiths’ Hall in 1699. A gifted individual, he made a silver service for the Prince of Wales, who became George II. De Lamerie probably lived with Platel and in addition to teaching the boy the technical skills of silversmithing, the Master also gave him the hand of one of his daughters in marriage. The couple had two sons and four daughters.

Platel died in 1719 and De Lamerie no doubt took over his workshop and his clients. He became a Freeman in 1712 and registered his mark the same year. Less than four years later, the young man had established himself sufficiently to open a shop and workshop at the sign of the Golden Ball in Windmill Street.

In 1731, De Lamerie was honoured by being invited to join the governing body of the Goldsmiths’ Company, by which time he was enjoying huge success. Commissions came from all the wealthiest European families and it is notable that all his most elaborate pieces date from this period.

He died in 1751 without an heir to pass on his business, both his sons, Paul and Daniel, dying in infancy.

By way of illustrating the kind of money pieces by De Lamerie fetch today, in April last year, a George II silver-gilt cream boat with London hallmarks for 1736 and weighing 230 grams, a smidgen over 7 ounces, and measuring just 4 1/2 inches sold at Sotheby’s in New York for $57,000.

This is somewhat out of my reach. However by chance, I came across this pretty little George I silver sugar caster (pictured right) which is hallmarked for London 1718 and estimated in a recent sale at £700 to £900. It sold for £7,500. Why? Because it was made by De Lamerie’s Master, mentor and father-in-law, Pierre Platel.


Picture top shows: Luscious Lamerie – A silver gilt ewer and basin decorated with the royal coat of arms, now in the collection of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths

33544-070130-252571-40

© 2007 All Rights Reserved.

It appears that a number of auctioneers outside London received consignments from one vendor who wanted to sell a number of small collectors’ items including trefid, caddy and double-ended medicine spoons.

The spoons were in unusually good condition but had hallmarkeds struck back to front or in the wrong place. Chemicals might also have been used to enhance the surface colour of the metal.

The testing and marking of jewellery and silverware to guarantee the precious metal content of an article has been carried out since 1300 and this, arguably the first form of quality control, is taken incredibly seriously.

The most common hallmarking scams use counterfeit punches or involve the transfer of genuine hallmarks by cutting them from an antique article and forging them in to a more modern one. Both are offences under the 1973 Hallmarking Act.

The relevant Trading Standards authorities have been informed and in an advertisement in the dealers’ bible, The Antiques Trade Gazette, the Assay Office warns “extra caution should be exercised if you are offered any spoon or serving pieces for sale, unless the provenance is irrefutable”.

Anyone who believes they may have come across similar items is asked to report them to the Deputy Warden, Assay Office in London, Goldsmiths’ Hall, Gutter Lane, London EC2V 8AQ, Telephone 020 7606 8971.

by Christopher Proudlove©

The years 1890-1910 are known as the Art Nouveau period and the designs of almost everything took on a new artistic style that was in complete contrast to all that had gone before.

It was a combination of ideas inspired by Japan, nature and medieval history starting with fluid, whiplash lines and ending with taut, geometric symmetry that heralded the arrival later of Art Deco design.

Craftsmen of the period included Archibald Knox, Dr Christopher Dresser and Charles Robert Ashbee, all of whose work is now highly prized among a growing number of devotees.

Knox, who was born on the Isle of Man in 1864, is best remembered for the 400 or more designs he made for Liberty and Co.

They appear in Liberty‘s Cymric range of silver and Tudric range of pewter, which were launched in 1899.

Running through much of it is a Celtic art theme – Knox’s parents were both Scottish.

However, it is difficult to attribute any one design to a particular artist since Liberty‘s employed several who were all influenced by Knox’s talent.

Dr. Dresser (1834-1904) was another whose designs were manufactured by Liberty‘s, but silver was just one of his many mediums.

In addition, he designed furniture, textiles, pottery – he was involved with the Bretby Art Pottery Co., of Burton-on-Trent – and other metal work.

Stark simplicity

However, the common denominator to all Dresser’s designs is its stark simplicity.

He found his inspiration in Japan following a visit there in 1876 and later his company, Dresser and Holme, of Farringdon Road, London, imported and retailed Japanese art metal work.

Dresser himself began producing silver items on his own in the late 1870s and in 1881 produced perhaps his most famous design for a particularly quirky, angular toast rack, examples of which sell for £3,000-£4,000 today.

Ashbee, on the other hand, was far from quirky. He was born in 1863 and in 1888 founded the Guild and School of Handicraft in the East End of London.

He too was influenced by Celtic art, but spoke out vehemently against the excesses of the Art Nouveau movement. He died in 1942.

Today, one more name should be added to this roll call of greats: that of a Danish silversmith Georg Jensen, whose talent was until relatively recently overlooked by all but the cognoscenti.

A sale in New York last week devoted for the first time entirely to Jensen’s work not only marked the 100th anniversary of the founding of his company, but also a coming of age in terms of prices achieved.

The sale totalled £4.7 million, almost three times expectations.

Georg Jensen(1866 to 1935) was the seventh of eight children, born into a working-class family living in Copenhagen.

Up to his 14th birthday, the boy worked with his father who was a grinder in a knife factory but was then apprenticed to a goldsmith.

The boy also took art classes and passed the entrance exam for the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1892.

Jensen had married the year before his graduation and the couple went on to have two children, but his wife died in 1897, leaving him with responsibility for the two small boys.

He did go on to marry a further three times.

After an unsuccessful start as a sculptor and art potter, in 1901, he joined forces with a metalsmith, who taught him about Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts Movement.

In 1904, with financial backing from a Copenhagen businessman, Jensen opened his own workshop where he planned to produce commercially successful designs rather than reproductions of antique silver, a goal that was achieved by recruiting talented designers who shared his aspirations.

Best known among them was Johan Rohde whom he had met at the Academy and the two became lifelong friends and associates, Rhode designing the important Acorn pattern tableware which continues to be made by the Jensen company today.

Jensen was inspired by Danish silver from the late 16th century through to the Art Nouveau period, producing bowls, tea sets, vases and stunning chandeliers which were snapped up by an eager – but rich – but clientele.

Wide acclaim

The decorative motifs for which Jensen silver is renowned were drawn from his childhood love of nature including grapes, pine cones, blossom and berries.

Up until the outbreak of the Second World War, Jensen silver had won wide acclaim in every major international exhibition of the applied arts.

Its hallmark was the superb craftsmanship that only traditional techniques of hand and hammer, rather than mass-production, can achieve.

At first, designs leaned towards the naturalism of the Art Nouveau period, but later embraced angular, geometric Art Deco designs that hinted at Modernism.

This naturally went down well in America, and millionaire William Randolph Hearst was their first major patron there.

He bought just about all the wares the firm had on show at the 1915 San Francisco World Fair.

Marilyn Monroe was said to be another fan.

By 1920, a showroom had been opened on Fifth Avenue in New York and American silversmiths began copying Jensen designs.

The most successful imitator was the International Silver Company of Meriden, Connecticut, who were cheeky enough to stamp some of what they produced with “USA Georg Jensen Inc.” which can mislead today’s collectors.

Naturally enough, the work of such masters as Jensen, Dresser and the many other leading designers of Art Nouveau and Art Deco silver does not come cheap.

However, their uniqueness and originality, coupled with their insistence of quality of production will continue to ensure their saleroom success.

Products from such short but well defined periods in the history of design are becoming increasingly rare.

Judging by the success of the New York Jensen sale. the signs are that the price spiral can only continue.

Picture shows:

A silver flatware service designed by Georg Jensen, estimate: $20,000-30,000. Sold for $180,000 (£96,256). Picture: Christie’s Images

HOME hint number one: next time you clean the family silver, stick a small strip of Sellotape over the hallmarks. Why? Quite simply to avoid them being rubbed away by over zealous polishing. Fact is, many people clean silver too often. It’s a soft metal and untold damage can result.

Polish away the crispness of engraving or chasing on a salver or rosebowl or whatever, and its resale value is seriously affected. You might even rub a hole in an embossed area such as the back of a hand mirror or hairbrush.

Polish away at the hallmarks – every legal piece of English silver has them – to the point that they are unreadable and you’ll live to regret it.

The value of all but early and rare pieces of silver could be reduced to what a buyer of scrap silver would give you for a chunk of the metal at so much per ounce. The price is presently around a measly £3.50.

So what’s so special about hallmarks? Everything.

They are what you might call one of the earliest forms of quality control, because a piece that carries them will have passed the strictest tests to ensure that the silver content is up to scratch.

Moreover, they are a boon to the collector who knows how to crack the code. Understand them and overnight you become an “expert” at deducing where and when a silver object was made.

British silver has been struck with hallmarks applied at the Goldsmiths’ Hall since 1478.

Most British silver objects have four small symbols punched into them that reveal an important amount of information.

Most important mark to identify is what collectors refer to as the lion mark – more correctly termed the standard mark.

This shows a lion as though the animal was walking to the left with one paw raised.

‘Lion passant’

In heraldic terms, it is described as “lion passant”. Quite simply, if a piece bears this mark, then, yes, the metal has been tested and found to be of sterling quality – that is 92.5% pure silver.

Next, look for the assay office mark – the symbol showing where a particular piece was tested and marked as having passed this stiff “quality control”.

Hallmarking has been around since about 1300, and in those early days smiths’ guilds were established in many parts of the country, each with a distinctive mark.

In time, eight major assay offices emerged: in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Chester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Dublin.

Today, only four remain. They are: London, represented by a leopard’s head shown full face; Birmingham, anchor; Sheffield, today the York rose, but prior to 1975 it was a crown; and Edinburgh, a three-towered castle.

Chester‘s office, represented by three wheat sheaves on a shield, was closed in 1962.

Next comes the date letter, by which it is possible, with a good magnifying glass and a book of hallmarks*, to determine the date to the nearest year that a piece passed through an assay office.

Letters of the alphabet (but not all) are used in chronological order, changing annually, to represent a year. For example, in the case of the Chester Assay Office, A represents 1701, B 1702 and so on.

By 1726 it was back to A, as it was again in 1751.

The secret of how to break the code lies in the design of the letter and the shape of the shield in which the letter appears.

In other words, Chester 1701 was a capital A in a triangular shield, whereas in 1751, it was a small a in a square shield.

A degree of care is needed to differentiate between the styles of shields and lettering, particularly on small pieces.

But by referring to the handbook, it is possible to date a piece with little room for error. Simply match the date/letter and assay office mark to those in the book.

It should be noted that in 1975, the Hallmarking Act, passed two years earlier, came into effect. It simplified the symbols and made them easier to understand.

Main change, and the one which will be an aid to antique silver collectors of the future, was that the date letter became common to all four assay offices.

Thus 1975 was the letter A, 1976, B and back to A by the year 2000.

Last of the four marks is that identifying the maker. Generally speaking, these are initials and are further guarantee of fineness of silver and quality of workmanship.

Smiths can be identified by consulting reference books to be found in local libraries.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it? And it is – with a bit of practice. But the problems start with the pseudo hallmarks that are found on electroplated silver.

While not necessarily meant to deliberately deceive, they can confuse, leading the uninformed collector to believe he owns something precious which is actually base metal.

Fact is, people have been confusing electroplated ware with real silver ever since the former was invented in the mid 19th century.

In fact, telling the two apart is simple: if the marks include the lion passant, then it’s silver. If the lion is lacking, or if there are marks such as “A1 Plate” or impressed single initials each in their own hallmark-style shields, it’s plated.

Man to blame for the confusion is John Wright, a surgeon, who spent several years experimenting following Michael Faraday’s explanation of the laws of electrolysis in 1833.

Wright realised that by a process involving electricity, it was possible to remove a thin layer of silver from a pure block and deposit it over another metal object.

Astute Mr Wright sold the invention to Birmingham manufacturers George and Henry Elkington, not just for a lump sum, but also for the royalties on all silver deposited by his method and all licences granted to other manufacturers under the patent.

The Elkingtons, in turn, killed off any competition by buying the patents for other commercially useful electroplating methods taken out by other companies.

By the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851, electroplating was the recognised method of producing any item that had previously been produced in silver at a fraction of the cost.

Middle class families keen to display their new-found wealth, but unable to afford silver, were filling their homes with the ware.

Similarly, the advent of steam power and other mechanical advances in factories and the appearance of new alloys like Britannia metal (tin, antimony and copper) and so-called nickel silver (really nickel brass) added to the success of mass-production.

The result is a massive stockpile for today’s collectors at highly affordable prices. Just don’t pay the silver premium for it!

Picture shows: a large and imposing pair of early Victorian rococo revival silver sauceboats by John Hunt, worth £8,000-12,000. Look carefully and the hallmarks can be seen just below the lip of the sauceboat on the left. They are for Mortimer & Hunt, London 1839. The other sauceboat will have an identical set in the same spot.

Graphic shows a typical set of hallmarks. From left to right: leopard’s head, town mark for London; date mark for 1801-2; sponsor’s mark of Paul Storr; lion passant sterling silver mark.