posted 07-29-1999 08:49 AM            

I bought a S & P set that has a mark I haven't been able to find. The set is about 4" tall, looks to be silver plate but I'm not sure what the base metal is.

It is 4 sided, square, with heavily embossed figures of 18th Century man (three corner hat) and woman on alternate sides. the cap is inserted, not screwed on, and acts as the fill hole.

The cap looks somewhat like the top of a chess bishop in the classic chess design and the holes are in a pattern that makes me think it is older than what I am used to.

The mark is what looks like a Dutch windmill with a smoking pipe on each side. Beneath it is the # 3550.

I will try to send scans through an e-mail. The green isn't there. It's only on the scan.

Is any one familiar with the mark or the age of these. Or where could I go to research other marks?

posted 08-06-1999 11:36 AM            

This information is wonderful. I hope I am not abusing the system but my research tools are limited. So I really value the information I gain here. As you might guess I am just beginning to collect silver and silver plate. These shakers cost me $8 and I thought that was a deal but they were not bought from knowledge, mearly appeal.

About the shakers,I seem to have a conflict with dates. If these were for the "Knickerbocker revival" inspired by the 1876 Centennial Exhibition, does that conflict with the 1920s date for the mark that WEV points out? Or is a date between 1892 - 1920s acceptible? Did the revival last that long?

posted 08-17-1999 11:22 AM              

Dear Mountain8:

I have a silver plate covered condiment tray with a glass insert made by the Balbour Silver company. It is covered with Dutch interiors and vistas with windmills. In fact, the scene featured on the cover is a tavern scene with people drinking and playing cards which is 17thc. iconographic code for "The Prodigal Son." The Counter-Reformation hit hard in Holland and those who could afford art, enjoyed the subtleties
of relegious expressions in what appeared to be secular art.

By the last 19thc., most of that original meaning was lost, but you still see episodes that could be related the the biblical story of the prodigal son in table ornaments and dinnerware. The moral of the Prodigal son story is the quintessential "Let's have a party and kill the fatted calf." idea. So even if a decorator didn't know the biblical origin of these scenes, they were put on the silver decorative items, because they seem ed appropriate.

It will take me a week, but I will post a picture of the scenes on the centerpiece to this website.

Sincerely,

posted 08-24-1999 11:04 AM            

Facinating information. I had wanted to place a late 1800s date on the shakers. From the hole pattern if nothing else. When I think of the 20s, all I see is flapper girls.
Though I know I can't say 1890 for a fact, it eases my mind when I can say a curator agrees with "around that date." My wife will love it.

The symbolism, Prisilla, do you know any more? It facinates me to see how little has been lost in religious symbols no matter the persecution. From the fish to Dutch beer halls. Amazing.

I've tried guessing about my two images but the closest I get is the parable about the seeds that fell in good ground, for the girl. I can't think of anything for the man. Any ideas?

posted 08-24-1999 03:46 PM              

The man appears to be sniffing a bouquet of flowers and the prodigal son is frequently viewed as an allegory of the seven senses. perhaps this is the sense of Smell? But that is another digression: Prodigal Son and allegories of the seven senses. I will go down that path another time.

Let's stick with one possible level of meaning --the woman watering plants and the virtue of Temperance.

So how does a 19thc. decorative scheme go to back in time for inspiration? The Germans have a word for it, naturally, Nachleben, or afterlife. It means the survival of symbolism long after the source for the symbol has been lost.

The Renaissance itself is about integrating pagen and christian symbolism. Renaissance humanists(who were friends with all the artists) rediscovered the art and literature of antiquity and created little artistic conceits around pagan references that were cloaked with biblical symbolism. One of the most popular source books for artistic and literary ideas were Emblem Books and one of the first and most widely used book was Cesare Ripa's Iconologia published in the 16thc. It was a kind of artist's idea book for portraying vices and virtues and you will find that one of the ways it describes portraying Temperance is to show a woman watering plants.

Now Vermeer is at least 100 years later, but his use of emblem books for ideas is well documented. Frequently Vemeer's paintings allude to counter-reformation themes and you can be sure that Vermeer added his own time's political references to the pagan and biblical symbolism. In the portrait of the Woman with the Pitcher, there is a map of South Flanders on the wall, certainly no accident in such a well constructed painting.

So Vemeer's meaning for his contemporaries is far different from the meaning of the painting to us today. But the association of the woman watering with the virtue of temperance was part of the culture, even if art patrons didn't read about it in some Italian emblem book. Statues of women watering plants are in use today as garden ornaments.

So we have the beginnings of a good case for basic prodigal son imagery inspiring the table ornaments. Because the set is a Dutch revival, they are looking to Dutch history and art for inspiration. The prodigal son story can and was applied throughout history to the Holland and Flanders and the split along religious lines into Catholicism and protestantism.

So we are getting somewhere, I think.

Sincerely,

Priscilla