Documents the changing styles in European silverwork from the early Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution.

First Published in 2005. Silver is unique among the decorative arts in that its raw material is both inherently valuable and infinitely reusable. Its ownership has been a social bench-mark and its form has exercised the skills of sculptors, designers, chasers and engravers, but ultimately it could be, and normally was, melted down and refashioned quite without sentiment. Because of this constant recycling, the survival of any individual object is quite random and unrelated to its uniqueness or otherwise in its period. Hitherto plate historians have focused on individual objects almost to the exclusion of the context - social or economic - from which they came but now that context is seen as crucial in understanding historic plate. So in the first section of this book each chapter considers contemporary attitudes and usage.

"This very thorough catalogue, with excellent footnotes and bibliography, firmly places the subject in its broadest context." --Apollo Covers approximately 95 pieces, representing Chelsea, Bow, Derby, Worcester, Chamberlain-Worcester, Caughley, Longton Hall, Spode, and Hilditch and Sons.

This bibliography of the study of household furnishings used in the United States from the seventeenth century to the early twentieth century contains twenty-one sections. Each section begins with an essay that outlines the development of scholarship in the files and points toward new directions for research with annotated entries on the most significant works. Three chapters present the basic reference tools and surveys of art and architecture. These are followed by chapters devoted to such topics as furniture; metals, including silver and gold, pewter, and Britannia metal; ceramics and glass; textiles; timepieces; household activities and systems; and craftsmen and the Arts and Crafts Movement in America. Includes an author/title index.

This volume offers unparalleled coverage of all aspects of art and architecture from medieval Western Europe, from the 6th century to the early 16th century. Drawing upon the expansive scholarship in the celebrated 'Grove Dictionary of Art' and adding hundreds of new entries, it offers students, researchers and the general public a reliable, up-to-date, and convenient resource covering this field of major importance in the development of Western history and international art and architecture.