A set of six silver gilt plates by Alice Amherst

Price: Sold

A beautiful hand hammered matching set of six silver plates or dishes (four from the same set) by Countess Alice Amherst.  Alice Dalton Probyn (later Vaughan, then Amherst) was born in September 1854. In 1889 she married her second husband the Earl of Amherst. She registered her AA mark (with a coronet) with the London Assay Office on 26 April 1900. She made a set of 24 numbered silver-gilt dessert plates, including four of this collection of numbers 1, 10, 22 and 24.  They are engraved with the initial “A” beneath an Earl’s coronet.  They are all hallmarked with the London date letter “d” for 1899/1900.

Plate number 1 has the following dedicatory inscription on the base:  “This set of 24 Silver Gilt Dessert Plates was hand beaten & gilded by Alice Amherst, as a gift to her husband William Archer 3^rd Earl Amherst, in 1900.  To be an Heirloom.”

The two other plates or dishes date to 1904 and were made for other family members.

Maker:  Countess Alice Amherst

Designer:  Countess Alice Amherst

Date: 1900 and 1904

Marks: AA, “d” and “i”, London

Material: Sterling silver gilt

Condition: Excellent.

Size: 21.5 cm diameter

Weight: 7.6 oz, 216 grams each (with some variation)