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Hi,

Does anybody know more about this set of three marks. My guess we are looking at pseudo or Hanau marks. Any help or more info would be greatly appreciated.


Oel

Hi oel,

This could be 18C or older, from Salins 'généralité' in the French coinage jurisdiction of Besancon.

In 1785, there was 31 coinage jurisdictions in France and marking rules was specific to each of them. While most of them had to apply marking duties (represented by the 'charge' and 'discharge' marks classicaly found on 18C french silver), 7 of them (Bearn, Roussillon, Franche-Comte, Flandre, Hainaut, Alsace, Lorraine), recently added to the French kingdom, were exempted of these marking duties.

This is the case of the Franche-Comté jurisdiction whose capital was Besancon.

From the silversmithing point of view, the French coinage jurisdictions was divided in 'communautés' which was kind of local guilds affiliated to the said jurisdiction.

In the 'communautés' of the Besancon jurisdiction each silver item had 3 hallmarks struck on it : the maker's mark, a town mark corresponding to the 'communauté' he belonged to, and a jurande mark (which identified the 'communauté' warden who assayed the item and who was elected every two year or so (quite similar to a date-letter)).

The town mark for Salins was the city coat of arms : 'd'or, à la bande de gueules, surmonté d'une couronne comtale', which seems to correspond to the mark in the middle of the picture (gold is represented with dots, while red (gules) is represented with vertical stripes), provided that there is an earl crown on the top, which is not clear on the picture.

For Salins the jurande mark was a letter surmounted with a fleur-de-lys. Is it the case of the mark on the left above the 'E' ?

If these hypothesis are correct, then the mark on the right could be the maker's mark. Silversmiths from the cities of Arbois, Nozeroy, Poligny, Pontarlier had the arms of their city in their maker's mark as well as their initials and had their items hallmarked at Salins too. This might help identifying the maker of this item.

But a picture of the whole item would definetely help for this identification. Could you post one?

Hope this helps,
Dinio

Sources:
- Tardy : Poinçons d'argent p144
- Emile Beuque : Dictionnaire des poinçons officiels
- Louis Carré : Les poinçons de l'orfèvrerie française du XIVeme siecle au début du XiXeme siecle
- Solange Brault-Lerch : Les orfèvres de Franche-Comté
- Collectif : Dictionnaire des poinçons de l'orfèvrerie provinciale française T3

Hi Dinio,

Thank you very much for your clear and interesting input.
I am afraid the town mark lacks an earl crown, and the shape of the E does not match the E under a ‘lis’ for Besancon Communautés 1768. The marks we discussed are on a silver ivory faced knight and also carries the import marks for Israel Segalov, London 1925.
Below King Arthur and Mary of Burgundy. I believe the marks are yelling Hanau (style)


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Maximilian & Mary of Burgundy silver triptych, holding her book of hours closely to her chest.
Regards,

Oel

Hi oel,

Very interesting pieces indeed! I agree with the dating of the statues to the beginning of 20C, mainly because of the fashion of chryselephantine in these years, and Hanau could be a good guess. Looking at their style, seeing the english import marks at first glance, I would also say that the other marks are pseudo-marks. But you sent us only the pseudo-marks, not all the clues. So I made some research and emitted the Salins hypothesis. I will try to continue this hypothesis defence, because it may prove some consistency if my guesses are right.

The 'knight' seems to be a post 1366 King of England according to his arms ( amazingly inverted !! and leopards looking backwards !! ??).

Obviously both statues are not made in the same way, considering their pedestal. Pedestal of the lady is made in a single sheet of silver and the statue seems soldered on top of it, whereas the pedestal of the king seems to be covered by the statue basement. It would be very interesting to check if there is some soldering at this junction (just below the marks). Could you post a picture of the base underneath? Also the style of the flowers is very different between both pedestals: almost art nouveau for the lady's pedestal, and neo-gothic for the king's pedestal.

The hypothesis I try to explore is that the king's statue could have been mounted on an older pedestal initially made for supporting a religious statue, which was commonly made for churches. It could explain why the english marks are struck at this place, and not in some place on the pedestal which was known as old and untouched during the marking process. I know exemples of silver knives where the handle is 17C or 18C dutch silver and the steel blade was replaced in 19C by english sterling, which was rather common practice with old silver in the 19C unfortunately. English marking on this flatware is done only on the blade (the new part). Nothing was struck on the handle (old part), hopefully! By the way do english silver specialists of this forum know where the marks should be struck on a statue like this, depending on its origin (english make or import)?
This hypothesis could also explain the presence of semi-precious stones on the knight body and not on the lady and their apparent (imaginary?) difference in their brilliance between the pedestal and the king's belt. Could you post macro photos of these stones of the pedestal and of the belt in order to see possible differences in status and mounting?

Coming now to the pseudo marks, it seems to me that there are some shiny dots on top of the "Salins" arms hallmark. Could they be the remains of the five pearls of an earl crown? This crown was not necessarily very prominent above the shield (see for instance Salins town mark, p345 of Wyler's book of old silver). As for the jurande mark, I was guessing one of the Salins "Communauté", not one of the Besancon's you are referring to (In such communauté there was an elected warden with his own letter mark, and his election took place regularly and his mark was changed at the time of his election, so the letter marks was not the same for different communautés). The important thing is trying to identify what is above the E letter: a crown, a fleur-de-lys, other? More precise pictures of the 3 marks, if possible, could be very, very interesting.

As for the english marks, do both statues bear the same set of english import marks? Could you post a pic of them?

Finally, do the lady statue bear pseudo-marks similar to the king's pseudo-marks? If yes a picture would be welcome. If no, this lack could be a clue in favour of my hypothesis...

Anyway, congratulations for such beautiful items, which seems of very good make and which are very interesting for our analysis and knowledge.

Regards,
Dinio

Hello Dinio,

You were right in saying I did not provide all clues, however I did it on purpose, to draw only attention towards the three marks and not the whole item, which makes most of us jump to a conclusion. I like to apologies if I have misused your time.







The photos show the Knight to be soldered on the pedestal, which has been gilded inside, yes quite different than our Lady, she is more part of her own pedestal.
Please draw your own conclusions and I look forward to receiving your final judgments.

High regards,

Oel

Sorry forgot to say most of the gemstones in the pedestal are a fraction smaller than the gemstones in the knights belt.

Oel

Hi Oel,
No problem showing only the marks. I understand very well and it makes sense focusing on each characteristics one at a time when analysing a piece. I'll have a look at your pictures.
Regards,
Dinio