Daily camera., 1899-08-17
LITTLE REAL PEWTER
An Article of Table Ware That Il
Very Rare.
The OlA Art Il Nearly Lost and Nod
0Pa Makers Are Unable 70
Produce . Really Good
Article,

It has been the fortune Of few peo-
pie to dine off gold plate on some great
state OCCASION. Rather more people have
sat at meal when the plates and dishes
were of silver; but only a small cir
Gle, it is quite safe to say, have been
| at dinner when every article upon
the table was made of pewter
To the ordinary person the word
pewter" means the metal, or, rather,
alloy of metals which go to form the
ordinary beer tankard in an inn The
collector of pewter, however, knows
very differently, and most people will
be surprised to hear that real old pew
ter is extremely rare.
The modern public house tankarrl, al
though it may be known by the generic
title of pewter" is not pewter at all,
but much cheaper and less interest
ing mixture of metal known as sand
pewter"
In fact. the old art Of pewter making
is almost entirely lost, and no mod
ern makers have been able to produce
a combination of lead and tin equal to
that which was current 100 or more
years ago.
Experts in the subject say that in
all probability the famous pewter
makers, Hobhouse, Jarmyn and the
like. possessed the secret Of third in
gredient which is not now known
When the improved processes of glass
making made glass vessels extraor
dinarily cheap, pewter making fell into
disuse and with its fall its secret per
ished also.
For the collector of pewter this i.
most happy circumstance, for it
makes his objects rare and valuable.
Probably the bestknown pewter col
lector in England is Frank jackson,
the well-known artist and the secre.
tary Of the London Sketch club.
1t was owing TO him that the first
dinner was eaten entirely from pewter
and it is through him that the pew
ter dinners" have become an artistic
function. to which many amateurs of
the cuZious in life would give q good
deal to be invited.
The originator of the idea began to
collect pewter some time ago, in frag-
ments. He would come across a dish
in some country tavern. AS the collec-
tion grew it became his ambition to
have complete dinner service for at
least six people. thing which. as every
collector knows, is extremely difficult
of achievement.
Gradually the set grew. The fine col
lection of tankards belonging to one of
the smaller inns of court came into the
market and was at once bought up.
Some wonderful tureens and basins of
pewter were found in Rome, the re-
mains of the table service of cardinal
in the middle ages.
The greatest difficulty of all was
experienced in the search for liquor
glasses" of pewter. The artist was de-
termined that nothing should be want
ing in his dinner service, and that it
should be complete down to the small
est detail.
Eventually, strange as it may seem,
the liquor glasses" were picked up
in Algiers. They are of very rare and
curious workmanship. Pewter seems
so thoroughly an English product that
one finds i; difficult to imagine it of
Moorish Workmanship.
The knives were discovered at the
sale of an old country mansion with its
effects. The handles are of thick pew
ter. II is curious also to find how diff
ficult it is to cat with pewter spoons
after the light silver ones in use in
the present day. When the whole din
ner service was completed the plan of
regular pewter dinners was inaugu-
rated by Mr.. Jackson. These take place
in great studio at the home of the
artist, Bedford Park. More than one
old English tradition is kept with due
solemnity and old English fare is eaten.
Chicago Chronicle.