Metals for the fashion-conscious consumer

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 2001 by John D. Davis

JOHN D. DAVIS is senior curator, curator of metals, and the Samuel and Pauline Clarke curator at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

(1.) Quoted in Jane Taylor Duke, Kenmore and the Lewises (Kenmore Association, Fredericksburg, Virginia. 1965), p. 23. The original letter is in the Lewis Papers, Kenmore Plantation and Gardens, Fredericksburg.

(2.) cited in G. Bernard Hughes, Sheffield Silver Plate (Praeger Publishers, New York, 1970), p.48.

(3.) Frederick Bradbury, History of Old Sheffield Plate (Macmillan and Company, London, 1912), p. 82.

(4.) Cited in Rosemary Ransome Wallis, Matthew Boultan and the Toymakers: Silver from the Birmingham Assay Office (Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, London, 1982), pp. 45-47.

(5.) Jean M. Burks, Birmingham Brass Candlesticks (University Press of Virginia. Charlottesville, 1986), pp. 37-39.

(6.) Ransome Wallis, Boulton and the Toymakers, p.6.

(7.) Quoted in Henry Winram Dickinson, Matthew Boulton (University Press, Cambridge, 1937). p.59.

(8.) For an excellent discussion of Boulton's work in ormolu, see Nicholas Goodison, Ormolu: The Work of Matthew Boulton (Phaidon Press, London, 1974).

(9.) For a thorough discussion of Boulton's trade catalogues, see Michael Snodin, "Matthew Boulton's Sheffield Plate Catalogues," Apollo, vol. 125 (July 1987), pp. 25-32. Fora thorough discussion of Argand lamps, see John J. Wolfe, Brandy, Balloons, and Lamps: Ami Argand, 1750-1803 (South Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1999).

(10.) Quoted in Kathryn C. Buhler, Mount Vernon Silver (Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union, Mount Vernon, Virginia, 1957), p. 53.

(11.) For the most useful discussion defining Britannia metal and its early development, see David Lamb, "Britannia Metal: Cinderella of Antiques," Journal of the Pewter Society, vol.5 (spring 1985), pp. 1-12.