Page 329 - Chinese SIlver By Adrien Von Ferscht

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Egg cruets were a favoured and much-used item of Georgian breakfast silver and several of the Canton makers
created faithful George III-style examples. The quality of these items is extremely high and are comparable to
examples created by the finest of contemporary English silversmiths; this Houcheong example being no
exception. It confirms the extraordinary expertise of Canton silversmiths to create such fine silver objects.
While none of these silversmiths probably had never even left the confines of Canton, let alone saw such items
in use in their native England, it should be remembered that many of these silversmiths’ workshops were
located in the warren of alleys near Old and New China Streets where most of the retail silversmiths were
located. These streets were literally bordering upon the “13 Factories” area of old Canton where all the foreign
merchants and trading companies were confined to under the strict trading rules of the Canton System. An
exclusively male-only area by Imperial decree, the resident merchant gentlemen [many of them were of
aristocratic stock] lived a life that mirrored their high-society lifestyles at home, so egg cruets would have been
widely used and could have been readily seen being used by silversmiths and the Chinese Hong merchants
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alike.!

The following illustration of a five-piece tea set bearing the Houcheong mark is again an extraordinary example
of the Cantonese “Georgian” style of the early 19th century. Of segmented melon form, it dates from circa 1830,
it is decorated with a repoussé acanthus leaf repeating motif which arguably could be interpreted by some as
being chrysanthemum leaf. As befitting the style, the rims of all the pieces are gadrooned, interrupted with floral
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and foliate decorative inserts; the cast feet are also perfectly in keeping.!