Pushkin’s Blog

Silversmiths Dumitru T. Silversmiths Dumitru T.

Important Silversmiths - Weishaupt & Söhne

The first silversmith of the honourable Weishaupt dynasty was Anton Weishaupt. He became a partner in the Leismiller company in 1801. The Leismiller family had owned the Licence to practice as a silversmith from the Munich Magistrate's Court since 1692. In 1802 Anton took over the business after the last of Leismillers was retired and continued to work with their original licences.

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Important Silversmiths - The Goldsmiths & Silversmiths Co

In 1880 William Gibson and John Lawrence Langman acquired premises at 112, Regent Street, London and founded The Goldsmiths & Silversmiths Company. The firm produced a wide range of items from solid silver tableware and cutlery, jewellery and watches to electroplaters, trophies and surgical instruments. In 1898 the expanded and well-known firm became a limited company and added "Ltd" to its name.

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Important Silversmiths - Hermann Bohm

Hermann Böhm (also spelled Boehm) was a famous silversmith and enameler working in Vienna between the end of the 19th century until 1922. Originally from Hungary, he moved to Austria in 1866 and started working as a silversmith with his father-in-law Ludwig Politzer.

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Important Silversmiths - William Cripps

William Cripps was a prominent and prolific manufacturing and retail silversmith based in London.

After being apprenticed to the popular goldsmith and banker William Daume, he was set free in 1738 and five years later he submitted his first mark as a largeworker in Compton Street, Soho.

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Important Silversmiths – Wing Fat

Wing Fat is a very fine although quite rare Chinese retail silversmith, active in Canton and Hong Kong between 1875 and 1930. The person at the head of the company is still unknown, but surely he employed very fine artisans, not just in Canton, but also in Shanghai to create superb quality items.

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Important Silversmiths – Hoaching

Hoaching (original Cantonese name is Wo Hing) is one of the largest silversmithing businesses based in Canton between 1825 and 1880. The shop, initially retailing finely carved ivory, is documented since 1825. It was later taken over by the founder’s two sons, and by 1850 the firm was retailing also silver, jewellery items, carved wood, mother of pearl and lacquer.

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Important Silversmiths – Cum Wo

Cum wo is one of the first Chinese Export silversmiths known active in Hong Kong since 1860. He had a shop in Queen’s Road, where many silversmiths were based, but the superb quality of his works and the attention to details made him stand out among the others.

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Important Silversmiths – Grachev Brothers

The firm, producing gold and silver items was established in St. Petersburg in 1866 by Gavriil Petrovich Grachev, who had previously worked for Gasse.

At his death in 1873 his sons Mikhail, Simon and Grigory took over the company and renamed it into Grachev Brothers. Each brother used to mark the artworks he produced with his own mark, as the firm didn’t have a mark on its own.

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Important Silversmiths – Julius Alexander Rappoport

Of Jewish origins, Isaac Abramovich Rappoport was born in 1851 (although some sources say 1864) in Lithuania. After his apprenticeship in Berlin, he became a master in 1884 and moved to St. Petersburg, where he opened his own workshop and started working as head silversmith for Fabergé. A few years later he became a Christian and changed his name to Julius Alexander.

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Important Silversmiths – Nikolai Nemirov-Kolodkin

Nikolai Vasilyevich Nemirov was born in Vologda in 1819, into a merchant family. During his youth he lost both his parents and moved to Moscow in 1843.  In early 1850s he started working as a clerk for the silver merchant Ivan Ivanovich Kolodkin. Ivan Kolodkin didn’t have children and named Nikolai his heir, giving him his surname.

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Important Silversmiths – Wakeva

Stephan Wakeva was born in Finland in 1833. He went to St. Petersburg at the age of ten and was apprenticed as a silversmith. In 1856 he qualified as a master and founded his own workshop specialised in tableware, tea sets, tankards and samovars. Wakeva supplied the firm of Gustav Fabergé with silverware and from the late 1870s he had a contract with the company to work exclusively for it.

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Important Silversmiths – Pavel Ovchinnikov

Pavel Ovchinnikov (in Russian: Павел Акимович Овчинников) was one of the most famous Russian silversmiths of his time and an exceptional businessman.

He was born in Moscow province in 1830, from a family of modest origins: his father was a serf. Nevertheless Pavel was sent to study in Moscow by Prince Dimitri Volkonski, where he was apprenticed in a jewellery shop.

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