Page 82 - Chinese SIlver By Adrien Von Ferscht

A superb 18th century Chinese Paktong jewellery casket

In Europe, Paktong was used quite
widely by the French master
silversmith Fraget, purveyor of silver to
the Court of the Tsar. Fraget went on
to open retail outlets in St Petersburg,
Warsaw, Odessa, Lvov, Tsibilis, Kiev
and Vilnius where he traded as Fraget
of Warsaw. Fraget had among his
specialities the manufacture of high
quality Sabbath candlesticks for the
more affluent Jewish clientele and
many of these candlesticks, some of
them highly intricate, were of Paktong
since it was forbidden for Jews in the
Pale of Settlement to own silver. Some
of these items were sometimes silver
plated and since pieces of historic
Judaica from an era where much was
lost, they achieve values at auction
today equal to solid silver.

A pair of Fraget of Warsaw Paktong Sabbath
candlesticks, circa 1880