30 
House & 
Card 
These two loving cups 
and the cup and cover 
date from the end of 
the 18th Century 
THE 
OLD SILVER OF ERIN 
In the Times of Her Peace Ireland Produced Famous Silversmiths IVhose 
IVares Collectors Seek Today 
GARDNER TEALL 
J N the perennially refreshing “Last Es¬ 
says of Elia”, Charles Lamb brings to 
mind the joys of sacrifice on the part 
of a collector of the interesting things of days 
gone by. There you will find Cousin Bridget 
saying, “Do you remember the brown suit 
which you made to hang upon you, till all 
your friends cried shame upon you, it grew so 
threadbare—and all because of that folio 
Beaumont and F letcher, which you dragged 
home late at night from Barker’s in Covent- 
garden ? Do you remember how we eyed it for 
weeks before we could make up our minds to 
the purchase, and had not come to a determina¬ 
tion till it was near ten o’clock of the Saturday 
night, when you set off from Islington, fear- 
ing you should be too late — and when the 
old bookseller with some grumbling 
opened his shop, and by the twinkling 
taper (for he was setting bedwards) 
lighted out the relic from his dusty 
treasures — and when you lugged it 
home, wishing it were twice as cumber¬ 
some—and when you presented it to 
me—and when we were exploring the | 
perfectness of it (‘collating’, you called | 
It)—and while I was repairing some 
of the loose leaves with paste, which 
your impatience would not suffer to be 
left till daybreak—was there no pleas- 
From Cork, being the design of 
William Reynolds, came this beau¬ 
tiful tray 
ure in being a poor man? or can those neat 
black clothes which you wear now, and are so 
careful to keep brushed, since we have become 
rich and finical, give you half the honest van¬ 
ity, with which you flaunted it about in that 
overworn suit—your old corbeau—for four or 
five weeks longer than you should have done, 
to pacify your conscience for the mighty sum 
of fifteen—or sixteen shillings was it?—a 
great affair we thought it then—which you had 
lavished on the old folio. Now you can afford 
to buy any book that pleases you, but I do not 
see that you ever bring me home any nice old 
purchases now. When you came home with 
twenty apologies for laying out a less number 
of shillings upon that print after Lionardo, 
which we christened the ‘Lady Blanch’; when 
you looked at the purchase, and thought 
of the money, and looked again at the 
picture—was there no pleasure in be¬ 
ing a poor man? Now, you have noth¬ 
ing to do but to walk into Colnaghi’s, 
and to buy a wilderness of Lionardos. 
Yet do you?” 
Would, dear reader, that I could hold 
out the hope of obtaining any bit of 
old Irish silver antedating the mid¬ 
eighteenth century, at even the sacrifice 
which Cousin Betty and her cousin 
were called upon by their acquisitive 
Candlesticks are not an 
unusual form to find in 
the work of the Irish 
silversmiths two cen¬ 
turies ago 
The work of the Irish silversmiths sometimes took elaborate 
forms, as in this epergne or branched decoration for the center 
of a table. It dates from the 18th Century and shows remark¬ 
able beauty of workmanship 
iL m J ke C n Se °* sil ™ rware >. lhe history is read through the marks. Ireland had 
her own silversmiths guild and its work bears individual markings. The marks on 
these trays and creamer place them as being made in the 18th Century 
This pair of candle¬ 
sticks dates from the 
18th Century, a prolific 
era in the making of 
Irish silver 
