Miniature Silver Toys Book & Slipcase Near Mint Condition English Sterling

Description

This listing is for the hardcover book "Miniature Silver Toys" by Victor Houart, and includes the original slipcase. This book is in near mint condition. There are pictured silver toys from the United States, Netherlands, Russia, France, Italy, and Great Britain. Pictured are also hallmark and information on the silver makers.
There are 285 black & white illustrations along with more than 550 hallmarks.
There are 237 pages in this book that measures 11 1/4" x10" x 1 1/4". This book is copyrighted 1981.
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From the dust jacket: The field of miniature silver toys is an unexplored area, where many discoveries have yet to be made. Until recently, these silver curios were neglected by museum curators, experts and art historians alike. Now all that has changed, and there are collections of miniature silver toys in all the great museums of the world that attract an ever-growing number of wonder-struck admirers. Museums now buy entire collections, and there are more and more collectors throughout the world.
These miniature silver toys are the products of the skilled silversmiths of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who reproduced original objects in miniature - often at the cost of enormous technical difficulties - with a zeal for exactitude that is extraordinary. Some of these miniature curios have withstood the test of time better than the larger originals they were modeled on, despite the fact that certain silver toys are no thicker than a sheet of paper, and the toys of chased silver - an extremely difficult technique to master on such small surfaces - are real masterpieces.
The author, who is an enthusiastic collector himself, opens the door on an enchanted world in miniature: these silver toys furnished the doll's houses of past generations and are faithful reflections of the customs and furnishings of our ancestors. Victor Houart also introduces his readers to the rules and regulations governing the hallmarks the silversmiths had to use in the various cities that were major centres of production for the toys: Amsterdam, Utrecht, London, Birmingham and others, and provides information on hitherto unidentified hallmarks.