Silversmiths in Elizabethan and Stuart London. Their lives and their marks

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Compiled by a scholarly writer interested in textiles and metal work and effects on material world of changing social and cultural attitudes. First part reviews silversmith's trade, c1550-1700, and the influences on silversmithing of French design and stranger craftsmen with chapters on Worshipful Co of Goldsmiths; apprenticeship and apprentices; stranger goldsmiths; patterns of production; generation of demand; quality control; etc. Part two, forming the majority of the volume, comprises short biographies on c400 silversmiths and attribution to 540 marks [pp211-605]. Part 1 has chapters: 'A changing world'; 'The Goldsmiths' Company'; 'Apprenticeship, freedom, livery and court'; 'Calamities'; 'Stranger goldsmiths'; 'Patterns of production'; 'Wealth, geography and identity'; 'Generation of demand for plate'; 'Plate available in London, 1560-1700'; 'Quality control'. Much on individual craftsmen such as Sir Thomas Fowle; Edward Backwell; Sir Richard Hoare; Sir Robert Vyner and Sir Thomas Vyner; Sir Charles Jackson; Robert Blanchard; Anthony Fricketts; etc; etc