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DESCRIPTION Antique English Georgian solid sterling silver cream jug decorated with bright-cut engraved foliate festoons and a blank oval cartouche. These jugs often suffer with the lower handle joint pushing into the body. This has happened and been adequately correctly. When the silversmith attended to the bottom joint, the seam running up the back would have lost solder and opened up or at least, holed. The Batemans tended to use the minimal thickness of silver to minimise price whilst retaining good profit. This necessitated a very thin solder joint up the back. The repairing silversmith has understood this and added some extra silver solder to this joint so it is now stronger than when it was made.
You can remove engravings by erasure (cheap) or flooding (expensive). The original monogram engraving has been removed by flooding. I expect that some of the bright cut serifs ran too deep for a successful erasure. I usually dispatch my silver wrapped in acid free tissue paper. Take a single thickness and hold it closely over the flooded area and you will be able to see the lost engraving. Alternatively submerge the jug in some very soapy water and gentle bring to the surface. Just as the cartouche breaks the surface the engraving will fleetingly reappear. My special photographic lights have highlighted the copper atoms within the silver flood and they appear pinkish in my second image. They are far less obvious under normal light conditions. Also highlighted by my lighting are the copper rich areas created during the original manufacture and they now appear grey as the red copper atoms have oxidised to black copper oxide. The pink area will soon 'recover' from my recent polishing and also turn grey. This feature of the sterling silver silver/copper alloy is almost always present after the metal has been heated but is not always seen because it fades away as the surface takes on the milky appearance of old silver due to the millions of micro scratches from normal use and handling. It is given the rather ugly names of 'fire-stain' and 'fire-skin'.
SILVERSMITH Peter & William Bateman (poorly struck on the curve, only PB clear)
DATE or HALLMARK 1808
ASSAY OFFICE London
WEIGHT in GRAMS 76
HEIGHT inc. handle 4", 97mm
SILVER STANDARD ·925 sterling silver
CONDITION Having consider all that I said above this jug is actually not at all bad, all issues attended to, a pretty little jug by a desirable maker in good, albeit repaired, condition

SOLD
Price £73
item number m7810
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