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Author Topic:   Small Antique Austrian Vase
efuerst100

Posts: 34
Registered: Oct 2005

iconnumber posted 05-14-2017 09:12 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for efuerst100     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
With my father's passing, my mother has given me a small trove of his family's silver from Austria. I spent hours last week polishing the pieces to uncover the marks and am starting to get a handle on what I have. While my own collection is Italian silver, I have begun to try to understand the Austrian marks as I hope it will tell some of my family's history. Many years ago, blakstone and others helped me identify a ladle from Pest that was passed down from his family. Today, I would love insight into a small Austrian vase. I can see that the vase is from Vienna and made in the 1810s. What I would love help understanding is how to identify the actual makers and to understand what purpose this vase has. Furthermore, it can be disassembled into 4 parts and I wonder whether, at that early period, such construction was commonplace.
I hope to attach 8 photos if I can figure out how to reference them now that I uploaded them onto the forum photo gallery.

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efuerst100

Posts: 34
Registered: Oct 2005

iconnumber posted 05-14-2017 09:15 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for efuerst100     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

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efuerst100

Posts: 34
Registered: Oct 2005

iconnumber posted 05-14-2017 09:17 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for efuerst100     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote


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efuerst100

Posts: 34
Registered: Oct 2005

iconnumber posted 05-14-2017 09:25 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for efuerst100     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Apologies for having trouble posting photos. Would love for somebody to reach out and tell me how to toggle between the images I posted in the gallery and a posting. I tried cut and paste and only several of the photos transferred. Sorry!

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efuerst100

Posts: 34
Registered: Oct 2005

iconnumber posted 05-14-2017 09:31 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for efuerst100     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

The height of the vase or cup is just 4 inches. It clearly is hand hammered.
Does anyone know whether the figure has any significance within Austrian folklore?

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Scott Martin
Forum Master

Posts: 11520
Registered: Apr 93

iconnumber posted 05-15-2017 10:00 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Scott Martin     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I fixed the photo posting. Please see: How to Post Photos using the Silver Salon Forums Photo Gallery

The marks need to be larger.

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agleopar

Posts: 850
Registered: Jun 2004

iconnumber posted 05-15-2017 09:14 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for agleopar     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Efuerst100, can't help with much but the construction is very much how it was done for that time.

It is a sweet little cup!

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efuerst100

Posts: 34
Registered: Oct 2005

iconnumber posted 05-16-2017 07:04 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for efuerst100     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Scott, Thanks so much for helping with the photos. Question: What's the best way to take photos of hallmarks? Because the SM forum only accepts photos with a smaller number of pixels, I lost a fair amount of my photo quality when I opted for the smaller, less pixelated version to post to the site. The site rejected the more pixelated version as too large. I used an iphone 6. Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

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efuerst100

Posts: 34
Registered: Oct 2005

iconnumber posted 05-16-2017 07:08 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for efuerst100     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Agleopar, Thanks for the lovely note. I appreciate your confirmation that the construction seems typical for the period. I was surprised by the 4-part construction as it suggested to me that these cups were made in a factory-like manner, perhaps with mix and match parts. Somehow I imagined that a 200-year old object would be more unique!

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efuerst100

Posts: 34
Registered: Oct 2005

iconnumber posted 05-16-2017 08:01 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for efuerst100     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thank you both!

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efuerst100

Posts: 34
Registered: Oct 2005

iconnumber posted 05-16-2017 08:08 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for efuerst100     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Scott, Thanks so much for your help with the photos. (I would love to understand how to photograph hallmarks more effectively yet with the low pixel count allowed. I had to select the smallest, least pixelated photo option from my iphone to get under the pixel count for the SM photo library and lost some detail as a result. I wish I was more sophisticated at photography so that I could solve this issue!) Agleopar, Thanks for your kind comments on the cup.

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Polly

Posts: 1970
Registered: Nov 2004

iconnumber posted 05-16-2017 09:19 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Polly     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
efuerst, if you take the clearest close-up photo you can of the marks and then crop it closely around the mark before uploading it, it may well be small enough.

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Scott Martin
Forum Master

Posts: 11520
Registered: Apr 93

iconnumber posted 05-16-2017 10:44 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Scott Martin     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
efuerst100-

I started an reply but because I am too technically familiar with the nuances, I found myself making it way more complicated than it needs to be. I abandoned my original post.

I don't have the time right now and this forum is about silver not photography or image editing.

In short, no matter what resolution your image starts out at (about 320 dpi for an Iphone 6); when viewed on an computer/internet device screen which the shown/displayed resolution is between 72 & 96 dpi. So if the photo's file has a reloution of 320 dpi, then the displayed image is huge to get all the pixels on the screen.

Take high resolution pictures with your camera but then crop the image with an image editor showing only what you want us to see. Then change the edited image width to a maximum width of 640 pixel wide.

The SSF gallery will accept images up to 2048 pixels wide and then automatically resize the image to 640 pixel wide for posting.

Perhaps someone else can simplify and make it clearer.

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Kimo

Posts: 1627
Registered: Mar 2003

iconnumber posted 05-17-2017 11:56 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Kimo     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
There are likely a couple of reasons for the 4 parts on your cup (my first thought is it could be a wine cup). One reason is that the parts seem to be made by at least two and possibly three different techniques - the circular base and top cup would likely have been either spun from a disk of silver on a lathe, or perhaps hand hammered out of a circular disk. Spinning would be faster and allow someone who is not a master smith to create uniform shapes repeatedly. The washer seems to be a shape cut from a sheet of silver and struck on a die to give it its shape. The figure seems to be cast, likely through a lost wax process or sandcasting or such. That way such a figure could be carved out of wood and used to create molds into which molten metal could be poured thus allowing for almost endless identical figures being made very quickly and only needing a bit of burnishing and minor handwork to finish them off.

[This message has been edited by Kimo (edited 05-17-2017).]

[This message has been edited by Kimo (edited 05-17-2017).]

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Scott Martin
Forum Master

Posts: 11520
Registered: Apr 93

iconnumber posted 05-19-2017 09:20 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Scott Martin     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I was just sent an email recommending these intro's for explaining image resolution:

What’s the Deal with Image Size and Resolution?

Image Size and Resolution Explained for Print and Onscreen

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