Porcelain & Silver Lire Ring Bowl

This ring bowl is an interesting example of reusing and repurposing in the  19^th century. It is made from a Chinese porcelain saucer, made in the mid-18^th century for the European market, which was converted into a ring tray in late 19th Century by adding a crescent moon-shaped silver ring holder. The saucer would have been part of a set of cups and saucers belonging to a wealthy Dutch household.

The Chinese technique to produce porcelain remained a mystery to the rest of the world for many centuries. Porcelain first arrived in Europe in 1602, in the harbor of Amsterdam. The Dutch had raided a Portuguese ship, (the first of many), with Chinese porcelain on board and bought their loot back home. From the 17^th Century, there was a huge interest in Chinese porcelain and ships filled with porcelain and spices brought wealth to many European cities.

Around the beginning of the 18^th century, Europeans had worked out how to make porcelain and Chinese porcelain started to lose its exclusivity. In the Netherlands, it became common practice to repurpose porcelain and add silver handles and lids, often because parts of the sets had broken or vanished over the years.

The addition of a tiny silver lyre made this saucer suitable as a little ash tray in the 19th Century, and in the 21st Century, it makes an amazing jewellery dish to store all the treasures you've worn all day. 

GENERAL INFORMATION 

Size: 10.5 cm diameter, 5.5 cm high. 

Age: The saucer was made in the 18th Century, the conversion was made in the 19th Century, also known as the Victorian era, circa 1870s. 

Material: the lyre is hallmarked with a Dutch hallmark for 835 silver, used between 1814 and 1905. It also carries the Dutch maker's mark 'B10' used by the silver smith Pieter Buwalda, who operated in Kuinre between 1865 and 1878. 

Condition: In good antique condition only minor with wear, consistent with its age. 

Please note that this shop is based in the EU. Although antiques are exempt from taxes in most countries, buyers from outside the EU might be subject to import duties.