Hall marks on gold & silver plate

INTRODUCTION.
"
Money spent in the purchase of well-designed plate, of precious
engraved vases, cameos, or enamels, does good to humanity."
RasKiN, "'The Stones of Venice," 11, vi, 18.
WHAT more beautiful craft has been practised by mankind
than the craft of gold and silver smith ? From the earliest
times of which we have any record, vessels of gold and
vessels of silver, made " for pleasure and for state," have been objects
of universal admiration.
Great artists have expended their power in producing articles
made from the precious metals. Dominico Ghirlandajo, who
flourished towards the end of the fifteenth century, and who was
the master of Michael Angelo, worked as a goldsmith; Verochio,
the master of Leonardo da Vinci, worked as a goldsmith ;
Ghiberti,
the artist who designed and constructed those wonderful bronze
gates of the Baptistry at Florence, which, as Michael Angelo said,
might serve as the gates of Paradise, worked as a goldsmith;
Francia of Bologna, whose real name was Raibolini, and who often
signed himself on his pictures Aurifex, and on his jewellery Pictor^
thus indicating the double craft, worked as a goldsmith; and Benvenuto
Cellini, of Florence, one of the most artistic men of his time,
and a cunning workman, was the prince of goldsmiths and auto-
biographers.
Not only have great artists devoted themselves to the goldsmith's
craft, but "true goldsmiths' work, when it exists, is generally
the means of education of the greatest painters and sculptors
of the day."
No matter whether we go to the old Egyptian records graved
or painted on stone, to the Bible, or to the classics, we everywhere
meet the workers in gold and silver.
Whenever we inquire into the origin of any art, we generally
and to the volume
turn for information to the monuments in Egypt
of the Sacred Law.
The Egyptians were exceedingly skilful in the use of metals of
all kinds, and understood the mixing of various alloys. The paint-
ings at Beni Hasan, drawn about 2500 years before Christ, show the
whole process of converting gold dust into jewellery. We see the
workmen washing the dust, weighing it in the scales, the clerk
writing down the weights on his tables, the use of the blowpipe to
produce sufficient heat to melt the gold in the crucible, and the final
working of the metal into vases and articles of jewellery.