Large, Spanish Colonial Inscribed Silver Serving Platter

This large and heavy serving dish or platter is of beaten, solid silver that is almost pure (ie has a higher silver content than sterling silver). The sides are raised, and the edges are scalloped.

The rim has been thickened, not by folding the silver or by soldering on a wire strip, but by the silversmith having hammered the edge delicately and evenly all the way around so that the silver edge bunches up and thickens to form a natural edging. This is both an early technique and one that shows considerable skill on the part of the silversmith.

The underside of the platter has been engraved with initials ‘M.B.’ – almost certainly the initials of the 18th century owner. Silver was considered very valuable and owners often would initial their silver, particularly if they lived in a large house with an extended family, so that the ownership of the silver was clear and thus so too was the line of inheritance.

Similar large serving dishes are illustrated in Davis Boylan (1974, p. 140), de Lavalle & Lang (1974, p. 161), and Luis Ribera & Schenone (1981, p. 229).

Such serving dishes were used across Spanish colonial South America, but the shape and construction of this example suggest an eighteenth century date of manufacture and most probably an Argentinian provenance.

This dish has a wonderful patina – the silver has the ‘rawness’ of early colonial South American silver. The well or cavetto of the bowl is lightly marked with many scratch marks from age and use but which also underline the purity and hence the softness of the silver.