Silver in Georgian Dublin: Making, Selling, Consuming

摘要

Alison FitzGerald examines the precious metals trades in Dublin from 1714 to 1837 with a broad socioeconomic lens. She considers production and demand for silver goods from the perspectives of manufacturers, specialist retailers and consumers as innovative manufacturing techniques, changing political and social mores, and competitive products like porcelain and fused (Old Sheffield) plate impacted the artisanal craft of goldsmithing. In Silver in Georgian Dublin: Making, Selling, Consuming, a revised and expanded version of her 2005 Royal College of Art London Ph.D. dissertation, FitzGerald provides a useful updated complement to previous studies of eight-eenth-century Irish silver which focused on connoisseur-ship of surviving artefacts, their authorship, and style by reconstructing the context surrounding the production, trade, and retention of such objects. To further her arguments, she utilizes a wide range of primary source materials, from Dublin and London guild records, Dublin assay ledgers, family records, probate inventories, and surviving trade cards and newspaper advertisements, to the minutes of the Wide Streets Commission of Dublin, as well as extant precious metal objects produced in Dublin, many illustrated, and compiles a detailed bibliography to guide additional inquiries.