Quadruple Silver Plate Holloware
Victorian Silver Plate Bride's Cake Baskets, Silverplate Compotes & Bonbon Sweetmeat Baskets
Abe offers a wide selection of antique silver, Victorian silver, fine estate silver plate and quadruple silverplate holloware bride's cake baskets, fruit baskets and berry bowls from these fine silver companies Barbour Silver, Hartford Silver, Oneida Silverplate, Pairpoint Silver, Reed & Barton Silver, Rogers Silver, Taunton Silver, Toronto Silver, Waldorf Silver, Warren Silver and Wilcox Silver.
More Silver Holloware 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7
More Silver Holloware 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7
Cake, fruit or brides (bride's) baskets came into fashion late in the 18th century and experienced their greatest popularity during the first half of the 19th century. These hollowware forms were used to hold carefully arranged fruits or cakes.
Great ceremony often accompanied the display and use of these silver and silver plated cake or fruit baskets, and the delicacies they contained. Most American silver cake baskets and compotes had solid bodies, but a few were made of open, interlaced wirework.
As the close of the 19th century drew near, large numbers of these dishes were made with beautiful multi-colored, ruffled glass bowls. As the century progressed, these amenities grew more elaborate, often having an abundance of naturalistic or stylized ornament added to a complex shape. Many incorporated multi-colored ruffled glass baskets for even greater elegance.
The Victorian dining room, the main room used for many social occasions, was often used for the conspicuous display of wealth through luxurious table objects. Principal among these displays of wealth was the silver cake or fruit basket, always replete with food.
Decorative piercing on early silver was relatively uncommon because each hole had to be laboriously cut out by hand using a tiny jeweler’s saw. Thus, piercing was usually employed only when necessary. The most desirable pieces are elaborately pierced, marked by a well-known and respected silver company and of substantial weight.
Cake baskets are very elegant additions to dining-room silver and remain so today. The best silverplate baskets are of substantial weight, often with profuse foliate or animal ornamentation and with a superior finish.
Bonbon dishes were a form which developed in the 1890's in American silverplate. Even in less opulent households, where the sweetmeat course might be served in the dining room, the silver sweetmeat basket was much in demand, for the company moved to the drawing-room after dinner and was served with wine and baskets of nuts and raisins and other confectionary delights.
