George Wickes, 1698-1761, royal goldsmith

George Wickes is in the first ranks of London's eighteenth-century master silversmiths, and, in fact, the firm he founded still holds the appointment to Britain's Royal Family. His work combined the traditional formality of English Silver with the more daring ideas imported from France by the Huguenots. The discovery in 1952 of a virtually complete set of ledgers and account books for Wickes's firm has allowed the author to give us a vivid and detailed picture of his life, craft and business of George Wickes himself and to identify surviving pieces of the magnificent silver he created. Illustrated with 127 monochrome plates.