Antique Large George III Old Sheffield Entree Dish C.1810 19th Century

This is a  fabulous monumental antique Old Sheffield plate silver on copper  entree dish and cover, circa 1810 in date.

The dish is of an unusual large size and rectagular in shape with a detachable cast handle within a gadrooned border. It bears an exquisite crest with the motto 'Forward'. The base with conforming gadrooned rim and a pair of acanthus cast handles on acanthus feet.

The arms engraved on dish and lid are for Stewart, From the Highlands to the Lowlands of Scotland, from the Hebrides to the islands of Orkney and Shetland, from Scotland to England and beyond, one clan above all others emerged to lead the nation and reign supreme. Clan Stewart dominated Scotland and then Great Britain as kings and queens for three and a half-centuries

The dish is of the highest quality with fabulous embossed and engraved decorations ready to grace your dining table.

Condition:

In excellent condition, please see photos for confirmation.

Dimensions in cm:

Height 32 cm x Width 40 cm x Depth 25 cm

Dimensions in inches:

Height 1 foot, 1 inch x Width 1 foot, 4 inches x Depth 10 inches

Old Sheffield Plate

or ‘fused plate’ as it is sometimes known, was the first commercially viable method of plating metal. 

The material was accidentally invented by Thomas Boulsover, of Sheffield's Cutlers Company, in 1743. While trying to repair the handle of a customer's decorative knife, he heated it too much and the silver started to melt. When he examined the damaged handle, he noticed that the silver and copper had fused together very strongly. Experiments showed that the two metals behaved as one when he tried to reshape them, even though he could clearly see two different layers.

Boulsover set up in business, funded by Strelley Pegge of Beauchief, and carried out further experiments in which he put a thin sheet of silver on a thick ingot of copper and heated the two together to fuse them. When the composite block was hammered or rolled to make it thinner, the two metals were reduced in thickness at similar rates. Using this method, Boulsover was able to make sheets of metal which had a thin layer of silver on the top surface and a thick layer of copper underneath. When this new material was used to make buttons, they looked and behaved like silver buttons but were a fraction of the cost.

The technique Boulsover developed was to sandwich an ingot of copper between two plates of silver, tightly bind it with wire, heat it in a furnace and then mill it out in to sheet, from which objects could be made.

Our reference: A4382