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I need help! I've had this plate/tazza for a long time. I thought it was silverplate but I recently found it again (after about 20 years) and thought it might be silver. I clean it up a bit and tested it with acid and it is silver, not silverplate.
There is an engraved mark on the back that reads "G.M. 1879" but I think that is just when the engraving was done. I looked all over the front, in the handles and everywhere else and I finally found what looks like a mark on the front in the center. I've tried to take a good photo of it but it's sort of hidden in the design.
The handles on this piece appear to have been added later as they are screwed on. The foot is also screwed on. The foot is plain.
I'm thinking this is possibly Italian due to the mother and child in the middle. What do you think? Can anyone decipher the mark on the front? It almost looks like "Dep" as in depose but it doesn't have any French hallmarks.
First...No attributions, but depose (in whole ir abbreviated) could be on objects from Germany and other local countries. Second...too many threads here cover the unreliability of chemical testing to determine content below the surface areas. So, third...photo of that rear mark might be important...can't assume dating as it could be something else. Now..??Do you think it might read "P. 2" and could the last be "Co." or "Cie"...photos are always trickier than first-hand eyeballing. [Again, not an attribution, but Trev. posted a 1934 advert. for the Posen firm where they refer to themselves as Posen & Posen..just to show that a scratch-style mark like P.2 could have some hidden meaning outside of established marks.]
Hello, this could also be German. The form reminds me of antique Roman silver, compare with the Athena plate from the HiIdesheim silver treasure found in 1868. For copyright reasons I cannot post pics here, but they can be easily found on the net. Believe what we have here is a more modern interpretation, using as main motif not figures from ancient mythology but the "Madonna im Rosenhag" (roughly: Mary among Roses), known from paintings by Stefan Locher (around 1450) and Martin Schongauer (1473). Again the net will provide illustrations. Central motif and handles were most likely cast, possibly also the rest. Another form of producing objects like these was electroforming/electrotyping, which became popular in the second half of the 19th century and used well into the 20ieth, though on a lesser scale. Just a gut feeling but I believe we have such an object here, dating to - very roughly - 1880, give or take a couple of decades. Not sure about the metals used, might be bronze or silver or some kind of white metal, possibly silverplated afterwards. As to the mark: I am quite sure the dep. stands for depose as mentioned. Belive the rest is for "P. & Co.", most likely the maker. There were quite a few firms during that period that used a process like this, not just the bigs ones like Christofle, WMF or Berndorf. Almost nothing has been published on smaller makers, so I have no idea who made this one. Posen and Posen is unlikely, it was founded at the end of 1931 or the beginning of 1932, when an object like this was completely out of date. Regards, Bahner
