How Silver Came to Porcelain: The History of a Table Culture

Around 1381, a vase from China is mounted in silver and suddenly becomes a ewer. Porcelain and silver do not meet at the table, but as a treasury mount: from the very beginning, the history of porcelain in Europe is also a history of silver. This article takes you on a journey through time from 1300 to today, with museum pieces you can look up yourself.

Porcelain and silver: how a vase became a ewer around 1381

The Fonthill Vase was made between 1300 and 1340 in Jingdezhen, a center of Chinese porcelain production. The National Museum of Ireland in Dublin lists it as the earliest documented piece of Chinese porcelain in Europe. How it reached Europe is not certain. The museum names the Franciscan friar Giovanni di Marignolli as the presumed bearer; in another account, it was a gift to the Hungarian court. What is documented is that it later belonged to the Hungarian House of Anjou.

In the Middle Ages, porcelain was so rare here that it was treated like a semi-precious stone. The museum says so itself. That is why the vase was given a mount, meaning metal parts that enclose the porcelain. In 1381, goldsmiths made mounts of vermeil, as gilded silver is called, with filigree and enamel. The vase became a ewer in the Gothic style, with a handle, foot and spout.

The mount therefore had two tasks. It made the piece usable, and it showed what it was worth. Something similar happened to a celadon bowl that Count Philipp of Katzenelnbogen brought back no later than 1453: it became a covered cup in gilded silver and is now in Kassel. It is often said that the mount protected the porcelain from breaking. For the Middle Ages, this is not explicitly documented in the sources.

Tudor era: why a treasure from China was given silver in London

In England, too, Chinese porcelain was a rarity in the Renaissance. The Metropolitan Museum in New York describes how, in the 16th century, it reached the country only occasionally and was regarded as a special treasure. The best London silversmiths received the commissions for the mounts. According to the Met, such pieces were suitable as royal gifts or for furnishing princely households.

One example is the ewer from Burghley House (Met 44.14.2): Wanli porcelain, mounted in gilded silver in London around 1585. The mount served as a display of status and made the high rank of the piece visible. Older still is the Warham Cup, a bowl with a mount from 1506 to 1516, which Archbishop William Warham gave to New College, Oxford, in 1530. The Lennard Cup bears a London hallmark of 1569/70 that dates the mount.

Böttger, Meissen, Augsburg: Europe’s porcelain is given silver

Around 1708/09, Johann Friedrich Böttger achieved in Dresden what Europe had long tried in vain to make: white hard-paste porcelain. The body consists of kaolin, the white china clay, feldspar and quartz. The result was called “white gold”. From 1710 it was produced in the Albrechtsburg in Meissen, at the Saxon court manufactory under Augustus the Strong.

Silver soon followed. For the early 18th century, Sotheby’s places porcelain alongside lacquer, ostrich eggs and agate: rarities that were mounted in silver and thus turned into “treasury objects”. Early Meissen porcelain was often gilded and mounted in Augsburg. The Dresden court goldsmiths were fully occupied, and according to Sotheby’s, Augsburg had the skill and the workforce. The goldsmith Elias Adam (around 1669 to 1745, master from 1703) mounted coffee pots, sugar boxes and tankards. One of his coffee pots from 1723 to 1726 is now in the Met (1974.356.424). It bears the Augsburg assay mark with the pine cone and his mark “Ea”.

Now it is no longer only about treasures. In the Baroque period, the mounts appear on pots, tankards and cups for tea, coffee and chocolate, at court and at the banquet table, in other words in use at the table. A Meissen tankard from about 1725 to 1730 with a Dresden silver mount (Met 54.147.81) bears a wedding medal. Its Latin inscription reads “QUOS DEUS CONIUNXIT, HOMO NON SEPARET”, in English: “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” How porcelain and silver can be given today for the 10th wedding anniversary is shown in our guide to the rose wedding.

Paris and Vienna: where gilded bronze usually takes over the mount

Silver was never the only solution. In 1718, Claudius Innocentius du Paquier founded Europe’s second porcelain manufactory in Vienna, followed in 1740 by Vincennes, which moved to Sèvres in 1756. In Parisian Rococo, more East Asian porcelain was mounted between 1740 and 1760 than ever before, now mostly in gilded bronze, known as ormolu. Ormolu is not silver. According to the Getty catalog, the mounts were meant to adapt the pieces to French interiors. The silver line, by contrast, can be found in Augsburg, in London and soon in Russia.

St. Petersburg 1744: Russia’s porcelain and tea

In 1744, Empress Elizabeth had a porcelain manufactory founded in St. Petersburg. According to the chronicle of the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory, the contractor Christoph Hunger knew too little. The process was developed by the scientist Dmitry Vinogradov, according to Sotheby’s a mining engineer trained in Freiberg, using Russian raw materials. Small things came first: snuffboxes, tea, coffee and chocolate cups, spoons, knife and fork handles, Easter eggs.

In Russia, tea is older than the manufactory. In 1638, an envoy is said to have brought it to the tsar’s court as a gift from a Mongol ruler; that is how the story is often told. Regular deliveries only began after the treaties of 1689 and 1727, via Kyakhta, and for a long time tea remained a luxury. What grew out of it in terms of hospitality is told in the story of the samovar.

Tea glass holders: why the glass stands in silver

In Russia, people soon drank tea from a glass rather than a cup. For this, according to the common dating, the tea glass holder appeared in the late 18th century, in Russian подстаканник, podstakannik, literally “under the glass”. For the upper classes, holders were made of silver. According to etiquette, so the story goes, ladies drank from porcelain cups and gentlemen from the glass in its holder.

Its task is smaller than its reputation. The handle keeps the hand away from the hot glass, and the wide base gives stability, especially on a moving train. Its introduction on the railway is traditionally attributed to Sergei Witte, around 1892. Silver offers no protection from heat here: it conducts heat well and becomes hot itself. Wikipedia therefore calls silver holders “not very practical”, and that is exactly why the handle matters. Today there are silver tea glass holders with tea glass in many shapes.

How a metal frame became an icon of tea culture is told in a separate article. And how the black drawing of niello is created on Russian silver is explained in the article on niello decoration.

Silver overlay around 1900: silver applied instead of mounted

From 1879, inventors filed patents for a different process: silver on glass and porcelain, applied by electrodeposition. The RISD Museum traces its basis, electroplating, back to Elkington at the end of the 1830s. A paste containing silver is painted on and fired, then a silver bath builds up the layer. In 1892/93, Gorham coated pottery from the Rookwood Pottery in Cincinnati in this way. The heyday lies roughly between 1890 and the 1920s, in the decades of historicism and Art Nouveau. Colloquially, people then speak of silver-plated porcelain.

The difference is fundamental. The overlay is a thin layer that adheres to the surface. A mount is a separate silver part into which the porcelain is set. The principle of the old mounts lives on in the mount, not in the overlay.

Bone china: what changed around 1800

Around 1800, Josiah Spode II introduced bone china in England. Britannica gives the basic recipe as six parts bone ash, four parts china stone, a feldspathic rock, and three and a half parts china clay. His father was probably already experimenting with bone ash before 1797. Bone china is thus another route to white porcelain, not a better version of Meissen.

Libellula: bone china in an openwork mount of 925 silver — view product →

Today: bone china in a cast silver mount

The principle of “porcelain set in a mount” lives on. The ArgentA pieces from the Symphonie, Rosalia, Rose, Libellula and Royal Hunt lines are bone china, created together with the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory in St. Petersburg. The openwork mount is cast from 925 sterling silver; finally, the surface is polished to a shine by hand. The decoration within it is a blackening of the silver.

Rose coffee pot: cast silver mount, bone china — view product →

If you are looking for a pot and cups as a set, you will find the mount matched within one line, for example in the tea services with silver mounts. If you are giving a single teacup, you are more likely to choose by motif: dragonfly, blossoms or roses as visible decoration. With a piece you use every day or show in a display cabinet, there is also the thought of passing it on later. Whether you collect or look for joy in using it at the table is up to you. For care, we recommend washing the piece by hand in lukewarm water and drying it with a soft cloth; a silver polishing cloth brings back the shine of the mount.

Symphonie tea set for two — view product →

The other half of table culture is cutlery. You can read about its journey in the history of silver cutlery.

Porcelain in silver mounts: brief answers

What is the difference between ceramics and porcelain?
Ceramics is the umbrella term for fired clay wares; stoneware belongs to it too. Porcelain is a special form made of kaolin, feldspar and quartz and is considered white and translucent.

Who invented European porcelain?
Johann Friedrich Böttger, around 1708/09 in Dresden. Meissen produced it from 1710, and Vienna followed in 1718 as Europe’s second manufactory.

Why is porcelain mounted in silver?
The sources cite rarity and rank, plus function: handle, foot and lid turn a piece into a vessel. In the 18th century, mounts were meant to adapt pieces to the room. Porcelain in silver mounts continues this line to this day.

What is bone china?
The body contains bone ash; Josiah Spode II brought it to England. The Royal Hunt, Libellula, Rose, Rosalia and Symphonie lines are made of it. You can find them among the cups in silver mounts.

What is the difference between a silver mount and silver overlay?
A mount holds the porcelain; an overlay only covers it.

What is a tea glass holder for, and doesn’t the silver get hot?
It does: silver conducts heat well and becomes warm itself. That is why the handle matters, not any heat protection from the metal. You can find suitable pieces among our silver tea glass holders with tea glass.

Sources and museum objects

You can look up these pieces and texts (accessed 07.11.2026):

• National Museum of Ireland, “The Fonthill Vase” — museum.ie
• Gillian Wilson / Sir Francis Watson, Mounted Oriental Porcelain in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles 1999 (PDF) — Getty Publications
• The Met, ewer from Burghley House, inv. no. 44.14.2 — metmuseum.org
• The Met, Meissen coffee pot with mount by Elias Adam, inv. no. 1974.356.424 — metmuseum.org
• The Met, Meissen tankard with silver mount, inv. no. 54.147.81 — metmuseum.org
• Sotheby’s, John D. Ward, “Mounting and Meissen — Elias Adam: Enhancing the Precious”, 31.08.2021 — sothebys.com
• Harvard Art Museums, Meissen/Böttger stoneware — harvardartmuseums.org
• Imperial Porcelain Manufactory, “Foundation of Manufactory under Empress Elizabeth” — ipm-jsc.com
• Britannica, “Josiah Spode, the Second” — britannica.com
• RISD Museum, “Sumptuous Surrounds” (silver overlay) — risdmuseum.org
• Sotheby’s, “The Imperial Porcelain Factory” — sothebys.com
• Copernico, “From Luxury Commodity to National Drink” (tea in Russia) — copernico.eu
• Frick Collection, “Du Paquier — Introduction” — frick.org
• Wikipedia, “Meissen porcelain” — wikipedia.org; “Manufacture nationale de Sèvres” — wikipedia.org; “Silver overlay” — wikipedia.org
• Cincinnati Art Museum, “Extra Brilliant: Gorham Silver Deposit on Rookwood Pottery” — cincinnatiartmuseum.org
• Carder Steuben Glass Association, Silver overlay (PDF) — steubenglass.org
• Wikipedia, “Podstakannik” — wikipedia.org (the statements on tea glass holders rely on this and on a popular source and are therefore worded cautiously)