Pushkin’s Blog

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Important Silversmiths - Mappin & Webb

Mappin & Webb has been for over two centuries one of the most illustrious British manufacturing and retail silversmith company.

Jonathan Mappin opened his first silver workshop in 1775 in Sheffield, a major centre of the English silver market.

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Alex Pushkin Alex Pushkin

Important Silversmiths - Jonathan Hayne

Jonathan Hayne was a prolific English silversmith of the 19th century.

He was born in Clerkenwell, London, son of a surgeon. He apprenticed as a silversmith and started is career in 1810, entering his mark in partnership with Thomas Wallis, at 16 Red Lion Street in Clerkenwell. Six years later Wallis and Hayne dissolved their partnership and in 1821 Jonathan entered his own first mark.

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Alex Pushkin Alex Pushkin

Important Silversmiths - Schleissner & Sohne

The company is considered the main producer of Hanau silver. During the 19th Century Hanau became famous for its silversmith workshops producing excellent copies of antique silver in historical styles.

Johann Daniel Schleissner, son of a goldsmith in Augsburg, moved to Hanau in 1816 and the following year he opened his own company. He produced items in the Augsburg style and sold them internationally, especially in Russia, France and Near East.

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Important Silversmiths - Neresheimer & Sohne

Neresheimer & Sohne is undoubtedly the most famous of the Hanau silversmiths working at the end of the 19th century.

At the end of the 19th century in fact, the city of Hanau, not far from Frankfurt in Germany, became famous for its silver industry tradition: Hanau manufacturers specialised in fine copies from the antique, in the most popular historical styles, generally marked with pseudo-hallmarks in the manner they were trying to imitate.

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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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