Page 852 - Chinese SIlver By Adrien Von Ferscht

This Wing Fat jardiniere is surely one of the gala performances this retail silversmith ever gave. At the moment
we don’t know who the person was at the head of this company, but it is obvious he was tantamount to being a
maestro.

A lesson learned! Even the artisan silversmith behind the boldly
emblazoned couldn’t get the Shanghai mark correct; a common
occurrence with Chinese Export Silver marks - and why not, when
literacy was not that widespread in 1900 and certainly few Chinese
could understand English beyond the well used Pidgin language
used to communicate with foreign merchants and ships’ crews.

Images courtesy of Koopman Rare Art, London; Bonham’s, Knightsbridge, UK; Supershrink’s House of Silver

http://chinese-export-silver.com Image Library Archive