Antique Silver Sweet and Sugar Baskets
SILVER SWEET BASKETS AND SUGAR BASKETS
Sweet baskets are like miniature sterling silver cake baskets about five inches across. They reflect all the period styles, from the late English George 11 ones of the so-called cast type, to the boat-shaped French antique ones of the 1790’s. Silver basckets are not like sterling silver boxes and are attractive small articles, always popular and expensive. Look for the same silver marks as antique cake baskets. Sugar baskets are deeper, vase-shaped, usually with glass liners. After 1785 they become boat-shaped, solid like Russian silver goblets . Also found are small goblets in Russia , like tiny silver tubs or buckets, about two and a half inches high.
Solid vase-shaped silver sugar basket about 1790. Handle may be marked. Price and value Range: £90 - £135.
Unusual Irish silver sugar basket on three legs with female masks. Circa 1775. Handle unlikely to be marked.
Price Range: £90 - £135.
Wirework sweet silver basket circa 1765. Fully marked on foot. Handle unlikely to be marked.
Price Range: f80 - £100.
Bottom centre. Earliest of this group of silver basckets circa 1755. Should be fully marked — handle unlikely to be marked.
Price Range: £200 - £250.
From a silver epergne as one can tell from the extra depth, the small rim foot, and the square hole in the centre of the handle. Also it will bear only the silver maker’s mark and lion passant. Although a sound and genuine sterling silver, less valuable as it is part of something larger, and only part marked.
Price Range: £100 - £125
Early boat-shaped silver sugar basket with antique Adam decoration — about 1775.
Typical antique silver pierced vase-shaped sugar basket with blue glass liner — about 1775. Later examples retain the shape, but have simpler piercing, often engraved with wriggle work, and no embossing.
Typical boat-shaped silver sugar basket 1785 -1805. Sometimes pierced with a blue liner. Body is often shaped and panelled. The prettier they are, the more valuable.
Unusual pointed shape, rather fine engraving, about 1785.
£100 - £135 Typical plain sugar basket about 1800.
£120 - £150 Typical engraved sugar basket about 1795.
£120 - £150 Sweet basket, about 1800.
£90 - £120 Attractive shaped panelled body sugar basket , about 1795.
£90 - £120 Handle goes across lengthways, about 1790.
£75 - £100 Half-fluted silver basket- not popular as it is neither particularly pretty, or easy to match to a tea-set.
Two Victorian silver examples.
Just over 100 years old - Greek revival period. About eight inches diameter.
£45 - £70 each. More pro-rata for two or four. Date 1886. Vaguely Dutch style - often came in pairs or four.
Cream pails are small objects two to two and a half inches high. Sometimes modelled as pails, with hooped bands, they are more often pierced, with blue glass liners. Antique silver basket were almost entirely made between 1760 and 1780, and are always most attractive and desirable little items. Here are three typical examples.
Tags: Antique, baskets, engraving, female masks, Handle, lion, plain sugar, price, rim, Set, silver, SILVER SWEET, SUGAR, sweet basket, Vase