Provenance: Private Collection, London

ABOUT THE WORK

Noted scholar of colonial silver, Mr. Wynyard R.T. Wilkinson, (who wrote the books pictured on the right), provides the following thorough background of this exquisite piece that would have belonged either to an extremely well-born or wealthy individual — and the art of silver filigree-making: "Assigning a provenance to items of silver filigree presents one of the more frustrating conundrums for scholars of precious metals. Articles of filigree, with their delicate, lace-like appearance and complex construction, have since their first appearance in Europe c.1500, been considered high-status objects of desire. Not only are they made of precious material, the technique used to create them is hard-won, so creating beautiful pieces of filigree is a task reserved for master craftsmen "Tracing the origins of the technique is a complex endeavor, as filigree continues to be produced from Bangkok to Lima and numerous points in between. There is, however, strong evidence to corroborate the long-standing presumption among scholars that the origins of filigree work can be traced to China, where silver was once more revered than gold. It is well known that the collections of Peter the Great, and later Catherine the Great of Russia contain filigree objects with provenances showing them to have come overland from China. "Some of the filigree that arrived in Europe came via Portuguese traders, particularly those based in Goa. In fact, it was once postulated that Chinese craftsmen may have been brought to Goa to make filigree pieces expressly for export, but this theory has been abandoned, as not only is it socially and practically implausi - ble, there is no evidence for it in the extensive Portuguese records pertaining to Goa. "More recent scholarship proposed that the Dutch established filigree-producing workshops in their Batavian colonies. The Dutch were, after all, the first Europeans to master filigree techniques, but the Batavian theory is also founded more on the trade routes filigree objects travelled than on than evidence of production in the Dutch Spice Islands. "A far more likely origin than either the Goan or the Batavian theory is the sizeable Chinese community in the Philippines. Despite being an ‘unfashionable’ theory, evidence for the Philippines being the source of important examples silver filigree is convincing. First and foremost is the sheer size of the Chinese population in Manila which numbered some 10,000 souls in the 18th century; add to this the strategic position and value that Spanish trade through Philippines, eastwards to Mexico and on to Europe held. "There is 17th century documentary evidence for a filigree altar cross and altar plate supplied from Manila for a Mexican church, and the pattern becomes increasingly plausible. Production of caskets like the present example ceases around 1750, which corresponds nicely with the Spanish expulsion of the Chinese population of the Philippines in 1760." — Mr. Wynyard R. T. Wilkinson