706 PEWTER AND THE REVIVAL OF ITS USE. 



It will be seen that it is engraved with the royal arms and a floral 

 border of simple design, and bears an inscription dated 1662. The 

 engraving on it is plainly but boldly executed, and has the great 

 merit of obtaining that loo often ignored quality, nameh% suitability. 

 But, as we have seen, the quality of English pewter, as far as regards 

 the metal employed, was always unrivaled, and the strength and ex- 

 cellence of the workmanship was also equal to the best. In the de- 

 partment of design, however, we have nothing to show in old pewter 

 to compare in elaboration with some of the pieces still existing, the 

 work of continental craftsmen. I greatl}^ prefer, however, the taste 

 of our own workmen, who made their platters and bowls almost al- 

 Avays plain (and, therefore, more easily cleaned), depending on the 

 shapes alone for the good effect of the cups, tankards, and measures. 

 The shapes of our old craftsmen's hollow ware are almost always ex- 

 cellent and generally far superior to the classical ewers and vessels 

 produced by the Frenchmen of the Renaissance. Our rivals on the 

 Continent, indeed, appear to have made the great mistake throughout 

 of overelaboration (for pewter is essentially a homely metal), with 

 the inevitable result of subordination of shape to ornament. Some 

 of the ewers and other vessels made by Briot, who has been called 

 the Cellini of the pewterers, are, however, dignified, in addition to 

 being elaborate. But too many of the show pieces in the museums 

 and private collections by German makers of the Renaissance period 

 are both inferior in execution and absurdly overdone in decoration. 



The solder used is still the hard solder of the middle ages, made of 

 tin and lead, sometimes with a small proportion of bismuth, and 

 when skillfully done the process insures not only mechanical adhe- 

 sion, but forms an alloy of itself between the solder and the metals 

 joined. The old pewterers strictly forbade the use of soft solder (i. e.. 

 solder with too much lead) ; and although handles of jugs, etc., and 

 th(^ ears of dishes were at one time soldered an ordinance made in 

 the reign of Elizabeth decreed that in future they were to be cast in 

 one piece. Modern hollow ware is often " spun," as it is technically 

 called, very much in the same way as clay on a potter's wheel. The 

 metal is forced into the shape required by a blunt steel tool onto a 

 wooden " chuck," or block, of the shape of the vessel to be made, and 

 much of the ornament is worked by hand with the hammer and 

 chaser. Some pieces are entirely hammered up from the sheets of 

 pewter, and therefore bear the impress of individuality to a more 

 marked degree. 



THE REVIVAL. 



I noAV come to the concluding and the more practical side of my 

 subjects — the revival of the pewterer's craft as an art industry. And 

 here I would again allude to the notable paper on pewter read by 



