Page 671 - Chinese SIlver By Adrien Von Ferscht

This early 19th century Chinese
Export Silver teapot by Sun
Shing compares very favourably
with comparable Paul Revere
and Bateman Family teapots
made at the same time. For a
silversmith in Canton to produce
an item so finely “Georgian”,
even if it had been copied from a
sample that may have been
brought to Canton for that
purpose, it is still remarkable
given the Georgian world was so
far removed from the world and
the culture of China.

Sun Shing in full high Chinese
style - a circa 1880 tankard [left]
with an exquisitely detailed dragon
handle clutching a slightly tapered
canister tankard literally
smothered in an array of Chinese
allegorical motifs.

Dragon tankards were a Chinese
Export Silver speciality; nobody
did them better than Sun Shing.
They became fashionable in the
West as christening mugs and
since most of them carry a central
cartouche, they were a popular
alternative to trophy cups amongst
the many Western clubs and
institutions that abounded in the
treaty ports, especially Hong Kong
and Shanghai.

But Sun Shing was making
tankards in the early 19th century
in the classic Georgian style. The
circa 1800 Sun Shing barrel
tankard [bottom right, following
page] is brilliantly classic in its
simplicity. This affinity for
classicism and the sudden change
of style towards the mid-19th
century causes me to theorise that
the “House of Sun Shing” may have changed ownership then - possibly even a son taking the reigns. While
most of the early silversmiths made a gradual transition from the neo-classical to the high Chinese style, Sun
Shing’s transition was more sudden.
There is also a distinct similarity of this latter Sun Shing style to the quality and detailed workmanship of Sun
Shing dragons to those of Tu Mao Xing - generally thought of as the king of silver dragon-making in China!