18th C. Peruvian Silver Square Dish Marked N. Alarcon

South America, Peru, late Spanish Colonial to early Republican period. A shaped square serving dish in heavy silver, assayed at 93.5 percent fineness. The well is shallow and broad, and its sides swell outward in gentle serpentine lobes. A plain molded rim finishes the edge, and its rounded profile follows every curve of the body. The surface is undecorated. Its whole appeal comes from the proportions and from the soft light on the hand-worked metal, which still shows the faint unevenness of raising and planishing. The underside is struck with the mark "N. ALARCON," probably the maker's or workshop mark. Plain, weighty silver like this was a staple on prosperous Andean tables, where precious metal served as both tableware and stored wealth, and this example was likely made for everyday serving rather than display. In Peru during the viceroyalty and the early Republic, silver from the Andean mines was turned into large quantities of domestic plate. Serving dishes, basins, salvers, and candlesticks of solid silver were found even in households of modest standing. Such pieces were used as tableware, but they were also a form of savings, since they could be weighed, pawned, or melted down when needed. Hallmarking was never applied as consistently in the viceroyalty of Peru as in Spain or New Spain, and much Peruvian plate carries no mark at all. A struck name like "N. ALARCON" therefore makes this piece easier to document, although the maker is not yet identified in the published literature. The fineness of 93.5 percent is high for domestic silver and close to the Spanish legal standard for worked silver. The serpentine, lobed outline comes from European dish forms of the later eighteenth century, which Lima silversmiths adapted and kept making well into the Republican period. Item # 205505

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