Certificate of authenticity issued by Sofia Ruival and Henrique Braga

Round, beaten silver sheet salver. Undecorated and of raised and scalloped edge, it is defined by fourteen concave and grooved centripetal sections encircling a plain reeded frame. The SVRº ownership mark is engraved to the plain central roundel.

To the dish underside, the stamped goldsmith mark MA (S30.0)[1] and an assay-mark, datable to the late 17th or early 18th century, attributable to the cities of Santarém or Setúbal (S1.0).[2] In addition to this salver, only six other objects have so far been recorded with identical maker’s mark, thus turning it into a rare example of silverware produced by a goldsmith’s from one of two possible Portuguese cities. The Museum of Evora, in the Southern Alentejo region, keeps in its collection a salver with identical assay mark.[3]

Referring an equally shaped dish from the Ricardo Espírito Santo Silva Foundation, the Art Historian Leonor d’Orey stated: “a superb type of salver common in our 1600s silver production, made in plain beaten silver sheet, with no decoration, and raised and scalloped edge (…)”[4].

[1] Fernando Moitinho de Almeida, Marcas de Pratas Portuguesas e Brasileiras (Século XV a 1887), Lisboa: IN-CM, 2018, S30.0, p. 344

[2] Fernando Moitinho de Almeida, Marcas de Pratas Portuguesas e Brasileiras (Século XV a 1887), Lisboa: IN-CM, 2018, S1.0, p. 339

[3] Inventário do museu de Évora, Colecção de Ourivesaria, Évora: I. P. de Museus, 1993, pp. 266-267

[4] Leonor d'Orey, Ourivesaria, Lisboa: Fundação Ricardo Espírito Santo Silva, 1998, p. 37