Silver & Silver-plated items

Richard Joyce, a member of one of the Tribes of Galway (the 14 merchant families who dominated the political, commercial and social life of the city), led an extraordinary life.

Although termed strawberry dishes, the classic early Georgian plain serving dish with raised fluted sides and a scalloped rim, were used for a variety of purposes.

Sustained scrap silver prices of more than £30 an ounce have sent large quantities of middle-of-the-road Georgian and Victorian domestic silver to the melting pot. Today, to sell well above the bullion price, it helps if silver comes with a strong narrative. ATG reports on a few great storytellers.

Scottish contemporary silver by Graham Leishman Stewart (1955-2020), squirreled away for decades in private collections, is now slowly beginning to reach the secondary market.

Irish silver pocket corkscrews from the Georgian period are not common.

A ‘monumental’ pair of 15-light silver candelabra made by Tiffany & Co for a member of the Vanderbilt family hammered for $230,000 (£171,565) at John Moran Auctioneers (27% buyer’s premium) in Monrovia, California.

Thomas Field Gibson (1803-89) was a man of many talents and interests.

Victorian silver novelties do not come much better than this claret jug by top London maker Robert Hennell (1826-91).

Among the countless designs that Josef Hoffmann, the Viennese architect and multi-talented driving force behind the Wiener Werkstätte, executed during his long career was a bowl with two scroll handles, sometimes described as a centrepiece.

A remarkable silver oyster tureen with cover and stand hammered for $26,000 (£19,150) at Leland Little (20% buyer’s premium) in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

A rare snuff box commemorating the escape of Charles II from Parliamentary forces after the Battle of Worcester was the highlight of Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood’s (26% buyer’s premium) silver and jewellery sale in Exeter.

Sigismund III Vasa (1566-1632) was a man of many parts. His father was King John III of Sweden; his mother Catherine was the daughter of King Sigismund I of Poland.

Invoice reveals the original deal for a Kangxi bowl that emerged from a London private collection

Part of an extensive collection of British and continental silver and glass, recently bequeathed to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford by a couple who lived in the Loire Valley, will be sold at auction in France.

Wartski’s Katherine Purcell stages a museum-quality loan exhibition devoted to the history and the magnificence of a classic jewellery form

Silver flatware once owned by the so-called Ladies of Llangollen was offered in Cheffins’ (25% buyer’s premium) latest Jewellery, Silver & Watches auction in Cambridge.

A new gallery opens this month at the Holburne Museum in Bath to display “world-class Renaissance treasures” on long-term loan from the Schroder family collection.