19th Century Old Sheffield Plate Regency Greek-Key Coasters - a Pair

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Old Sheffield Plate, English - 19th Century. Style or Possibly of Matthew Boulton's Work.

Handsome, generously scaled Old Sheffield Plate … Read more Old Sheffield Plate, English - 19th Century. Style or Possibly of Matthew Boulton's Work.

Handsome, generously scaled Old Sheffield Plate coasters, each struck from fused silver-on-copper and edged with Boulton’s signature applied beaded molding. The dished walls are crisply flat-chased with a continuous Greek-key frieze enclosed by fine striated borders; just within, a ring of hand-punched tongue-and-dot ornament reads as a low gallery while keeping the silhouette disciplined and clean. The centers are fitted with turned hardwood bosses secured from beneath, the undersides retaining period green baize. The weight, precision of the chasing, and the authoritative beaded rim place these squarely in the high Birmingham neoclassical idiom.

These coasters align with work from Matthew Boulton’s Soho Manufactory in the final decades of the eighteenth century, when Boulton and his chasers popularized the bright, architectural Greek-key vocabulary on table silver and fused plate. Diagnostic features here include: the robust applied beading of unusually even pitch; the sharply ruled Greek-key cut on a flat, highly polished field rather than on a raised band; the inner tongue-and-dot ring, which Boulton’s workshops used on bottle slides and coasters to give visual “lift” without a pierced gallery; and the ample 7½-inch diameter, a luxurious size associated with high-status wine service. The construction is consistent with period Old Sheffield Plate: a dished silver-faced sheet over copper with a separate rolled rim core to carry the bead, wood boss threaded through from below, and baize to protect the table. See less