A German parcel-gilt silver dish, possibly Peter Ehrwerth, Anklam, circa 1600

Sotheby's, Geneva, 11 November 1986, lot 39

Peter Ewerth was instrumental in setting up a Goldsmiths' Guild in Anklam in 1565.¹ Anklam, although a relatively small town, was made a member of the Hanseatic League in 1283 and subsequently achieved a degree of prosperity and influence. The relative scarcity of 17th century Anklam silver (three spoons and a cup recorded in Scheffler) can perhaps be explained by the town's fraught history, with the Swedish and Holy Roman Empire fighting over it in the 30 Years' War as well as later fires and outbreaks of plague. Its subsequent history was no less tragic: it was looted by the forces of Peter the Great in 1712, damaged during the Seven Years' War in the 1750s and 1760s, 80% destroyed during US bombing raids in 1944 and then almost entirely levelled by advancing Soviet forces in 1945.

Notes

1. W. Scheffler, Goldschmiede Mittel- und Nordostdeutschlands, Berlin 1980, p.4