Postby Bahner » Sun Nov 11, 2007 5:36 am
Hello, looks indeed like an old Erfurt piece. Congrats. Very little has been published on the subject of Erfurt marks since Rosenberg. The last study I am aware of came out in 1929. It is not known how or if the city mark was used in the 19th century. From what is known about the use of towns marks in other German cities in the 19th century, the Erfurt city mark was most likely in use at least until the German guilds (including that of the goldsmiths’) were dissolved in the 1850ies. I seem to remember 1853 as the exact date, but I may not be quite exact here. Since then, if no new local rules were established and enforced, it was pretty much up to the individual maker to decide, whether he wanted to continue using the “old” city mark or not. There is no pattern here. Some used it until the 1880ies, other disabandoned it in the early 1860ies. It is not known how the Erfurt makers handled this. So there is no exact way of telling how old this piece is, at least not by looking at the marks. The style might help to narrow this down. The bowl of this piece is in the so-called “Second Rococo” style, which became popular in Germany in the 1860ies. So I would date this a little later than Tom, ca. 1860, give or take a few years. Best wishes, Bahner
