Silver: over the past couple of years the market for traditional areas, such as English Georgian silver, has been quiet, but high prices are being paid for outstanding designs and intriguing provenances

above the past few years the antique silver market appear to bes to have polarised into sum of two units extremes. Pieces that are of real artistic or historic significance, or which are unusual in a certain number of particular aspect, have attracted a great deal of interest and have fetched able-bodied prices at auction. At the other extremity of the scale what could be described as commercial pieces are suffering from a marked lack of interest in the sale scopes and are tending to stick upon dealers' shelves. In many have a high opinion ofs although this may not be comfortable for a certain quantity of dealers, there is little harm in this situation. It is comforting to know that when an particular has real merit there are a number of potential purchasers who really appreciate it and are eager to acquire it; conversely the market from time to time exigencys periods of readjustment when pieces that are of inferior significance, and have perhaps been over-valued in the past, readjust to a more realistic horizontal Having said this, Christie's new sale in New York would look to indicate that the market in general is now strengthening and beginning to put in motion upwards again.

Somewhat lacklustre interest in 'mainstream' areas similar as English mid to late-eighteenth-century silver has meant that the two dealers and auction houses have had to work hard to find pieces of sufficient appeal to attract their clients' attention and there has in fact been little of great significance upon the market. Much of the material upon offer has been well-known already, or lacking in distinction. Generally prices at auction, and the horizontals of activity within the trade, have not been sufficiently powerful to entice owners who might have been considering disposing of pieces into selling them either to dealers or at auction. European dealers have inevitably feeled from the drop in the number of visitors from the United States and, more newly by the weakening of the us dollar. However a number of exhibitors at Maastricht this year reported satisfactory horizontals of trading, with a larger-than-usual number of European purchasers and an encouraging numberof novel collectors entering into the market. In the United States business was also inevitably affected by means of the aftermath of the incidents of 11 September 2001 on the contrary now the trend is towards greater confidence and increased horizontals of activity.

Provenance counts: English silver

Occasionally pieces of English silver have performed extremely well on the contrary this can almost invariably be attributed to rarity or to provenance. individual example is a charming and highly unusual James n salver upon foot (Fig. 1) by William Gamble of 1688 (Christie's, London, 11 June 2003) decorated all above with wriggle-work engraving in a naive diction that is reminiscent of contemporary textiles; attracting plenteous attention, this piece realised 81260[pound sterling]. Provenance certainly helped a pair of John Scofield candlesticks of 1781 engraved with the comb of William Beckford to attain 156740[euro] (Christie's, Paris, 18 March 2003)

a certain quantity of collectors have now dropped without of the English silver market. The greatest in quantity prominent of these is His Excellency Mahdi Al-Tajir, the Saudi Ambassador to London. Pieces from his collection have been appearing in the sale ranges over the past few years whilst realitys from an important English private collection have also been coming upon to the market; in the pair cases they have been met with a mixed reply and results have been variable. A number of significant pieces, like as a silver-gilt ewer and basin made through George Wickes for Frederick Prince of Wales, first acquired single a few years ago, did not arouse abundant enthusiasm on their reappearance upon the market.

Continental silver: masterpieces upon offer

The auction houses have freshly offered some outstanding examples of Continental silver. In June of last year Christie's sold three pieces from the collection of Eugen Gutmann (1840-1925) which had finally been turn backed to his family after being seized through the Nazis. These were a silver-gilt Augsburg ewer by dint of Johannes Lencker I of 1625-30 which made 1069250[pound sterling], a Nuremberg double bowl of 1596 (363,650[pounds sterling]) and a parcel-gilt beaker by Hans Kienle of Ulm (593 250[pound sterling]). In the same sale was a Strasbourg beaker of 1746, the masterpiece of Jean-Frederic Baer which was accompanied by the agency of a portrait of Beer holding the chalice itself and which had not been upon the market since the silversmith's death in 1795

This extraordinarily well documented particular with chasing worthy of the finest gold chest made 363,650[pounds sterling]. At Sotheby's (12 December 2003) Christoph Lencker's figure of King David from the collection of Nathaniel Mayer Victor, 3rd Lord Rothschild reached 285600[pound sterling]. All these pieces are of great significance, justifying their powerful prices.

There looks to be growing interest in unusual Continental pieces dating from the nineteenth hundred Two pieces in particular illustrate this. The first is the 'Temperance and Intemperance' ewer of 1839 by the agency of Charles Wagner of Paris (Sotheby's, London, 15 May 2003) originally purchased through the duc de Luynes. It had not been upon the market since the nineteenth hundred and achieved 128,800[pounds sterling] against a considerably lower pre-sale estimate. The next to the first was a gold and enamel-mounted jasper chalice commissioned by the duc de Luyne in 1854 from Jean-Valentin Morel, which made 299375[euro] against an estimate of 80-120000[euro] Shortly after the date of the sale it was acquired by the agency of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the museum which had a year earlier acquired a nineteenth-century carbonized iron ewer and basin inlaid with silver and gold by means of Antonio Cortelazzo commissioned by Sir William Drake (Fig. 2) The three pieces are of greatly contrasting manner of writings but are all outstanding statements of mid-nineteenth-century taste.