posted 12-20-2009 08:53 AM            

Recently I purchased this nice 5 piece coffee and tea service hallmarked by Crichton Brothers and with a hallmarked date of 1920.

I am already aware that Crichton was one of the best post period producers of Queen Anne and later period English silver, and that they were noted as being among the best. I am also aware of their top status as dealers during the mid 20th century in fine English silver, with galleries in London and New York City.

My question is more about cut-card silver work which seems to have been introduced into London in the 18th century by the Huguenot silver smiths.

Personally, I have not noted cut-card silver work that often. Actually, aside from a few examples I can find searching the internet, I can't find any at all aside from this Queen Anne silver gilt hot water jug:

This particular jug shows a very similar treatment of cut-card silver work as found on my coffee and tea service.

My generic question this: Is cut card silver work rare or at least seldom encountered? My specific question regarding this coffee and tea service is, do you think this service is an accurate copy of a Queen Anne service, or more an interpretation of such a set? In other words, is this an arts and crafts "re-invention" or a likely more a faithful copy of a great Queen Anne silver set?

Aside from the hot water jug sold by Christies and linked above, this cut-card treatment in the manner shown on that period Queen Anne piece is almost impossible to find, including on those Queen Anne pieces later made by numerous other London silversmiths.

As always, your thoughts, opinions and ideas are much appreciated even before they are expressed. Also, kind wishes for a wonderful holiday season to all the participants of the Silver Salon Forum.

posted 12-21-2009 01:23 AM            

The pertinent thing to remember when it comes to cut card is that the design is always cut vertically. This may be obvious to most here but to a young, technically ambitious, silversmith who thought it was time to do things differently, after all it was the 20th c. the concept was not set in stone, I thought I would push the boundaries of my skill. So after raising a pair of tumbling cups with a pair of tightly fitting second cups for the outer skin I tried to very carefully heat the inside cup as I soldered the 2 together. The problem is that I had cut a design that looked like horizontal slashes (quite modern if I don't say so myself).

Silver is so conductive that my plan turned out to be impossible and the thin places in the design heated quickly and then stretched away from the inner cup and in my panic to solder it while I was in the moment of red hot flowing solder, flux and cups, I fed extra solder in - way to much. Then spent hours saving them by filing away the extra that had flowed into the design. Smiths reading this will be laughing by now.

The 2 cups were a wedding present from an American to a German couple, so although I cleaned them up enough to please the customer, to this day, 30 years later, I am embarrassed that there are a pair of "experimental" cut card cups floating around Germany. The recipients claimed to like them - but were they just being polite?

So the lesson learned, if you want to do successful cut card, always cut your designs vertically!

One last thought is that applied silver in all its forms are done the same way as cut card but because the pieces are just floating (so to speak) on the surface unattached like cut card at the bottom, they are much easier to solder. Appliqué therefore is the design successor to cut card, technically speaking.