Page 908 - Chinese SIlver By Adrien Von Ferscht

The predominant feature of YKC work, apart from the minute intricacy, is the multi-layering of component
elements of the overall final piece. This presents as having incredible depth and perspective.

The art of filigree silver making is not an indigenous skill to China, however it has been an art that has been
both present and mastered since the 11th century. Filigree silver work is an art predominantly developed by
Jewish silversmiths from Spain who, because of persecution at various times in Spain’s history, found their way
to Sassania [modern-day Iran]. These silversmiths plied the Silk Route with their wares and introduced filigree
silver to China. During the Sung Dynasty, many of these Sassanian silversmiths and their families settled in
Kaifeng Fu in China and since then, filigree silver work became an art associated with Chinese silver making
and organically evolved a Chinese style in silver.

Quite why the YKC mark confines itself exclusively to card cases is not yet understood; Chinese card cases are
almost always of a particular shape, as the early 19th century card case [above] shows.

I am currently carrying out in-depth research into the history of filigree silver making in China, not only with the
aim of solving the mysteries of YKC and the shape Chinese card cases came to be in, but also to understand
whether the intricate Chinese silver filigree and enamel work of the 17th and 18th centuries had any connection