PRIZE PLATE.
We have inspected at Messrs. Hunt and Roskell's a set of silver plate which has obtained a prize offered by the Goldsmiths Company on the . occasion of the Great Exhibition, "in order to test the state of art as applied to silver manufacture." The set consists of five distinct groups, three of them belonging to candelabra. The works represent respectively the granting of the charter of incorporation to the Goldsmiths Company by Richard the Second ; a subject illustrating the benevolence of the Com- pany ; another showing its public functions ; the three worthies of the craft, Cellini, Heriot, and Sir Martin Bowes ; and Michel Angelo in the studio of his master Domenico Ghirlandajo. The plate is elaborate and handsome; but, when we consider that it is adjudged the best out of a competition open to the British trade at large, " the state of art as ap- plied to silver manufacture" cannot be pronounced very healthy. Not to insist on details, it is enough to say that there is nothing in the arrange- .went, fancy, or style of the groups, marking a special affinity of treat- ment to material. They are small groups in silver, just as they might kbe small groups in anything else ; but the art and the manufacture do not react upon each other so as to form an indissoluble concrete. A splendid vase standing near them, of which the design is foreign, being by the renowned Vechte, though the execution belongs to Messrs. Hunt, and Roskell, might be a lesson to our countrymen in this respect, as well as in many particular refinements.
Previous page
