Pewter is an alloy : tin, lead, copper, antimony, bismuth..

In France :

• Fine pewter : 90 to 95 % tin, 5 to 10 % lead, 1 to 2 % copper, 1 to 2 % antimony.
• Common pewter : 80 to 90 % tin, 10 to 20 % lead, bismuth.
• Claire étoffe (the lowest quality) : 50 to 70 % tin, 30 à 50 % lead.

Tin cannot be alloyed with silver : The technical impossibility was clearly defined by SALMON in 1788.

Pewter is manufactured by casting : stone moulds in the Middle-Ages, then bronze and cast iron moulds, from 16th to 19th C.

Middle-Ages : very few pieces preserved, mostly in museums (plates and dishes, chalices and religious artefacts, of very plain design, without decoration).

Lyon workshops, circa 1560

Renaissance : "Edelzinn", literally "noble pewter", with cast relief decoration alike silver. Workshops in LYON and MONTBELIARD (François BRIOT, celebrated ewer and basin "à la Tempérance"), and in NURNBERG with Caspar ENDERLEIN). This production spreads over about a century.

17th – 18th Century : very plain design again, some relief cast decorations appear at the end of the 17th C."Cardinal" dish : so called because it was introduced in France by cardinal Mazarin, and was then called "plat à la Cardinal, plat à la Mazarin".

Louis XIV ordinances compelling his subjects to give away their silver for coining, made at least the pewterers busy by producing pieces "in silver-fashion" to replace the melted silver : ewers, porringers, casters, etc. It is the golden age for French pewterers, with numerous and important workshops in BESANÇON, BORDEAUX, PARIS, LYON, ROUEN, TOULOUSE, STRASBOURG.

At the same time were produced numerous objects for everyday life, very plain in design.

Pichets : covered measures for wine. As there was no standard system in France, measures were different in each province, even in each town! The forms also were unlike, so as to recognize one measure from another. (the metric system was introduced in 1792, unifying the measures).

We can define three main shapes :

shouldered : Île de France, Normandie, Champagne, Bourgogne, Languedoc, Provence, Bretagne, Anjou, Guyenne.	baluster : Flandre, Lorraine, Normandie, Franche-Comté, Languedoc (Toulouse).	tapering : Alsace, Lyonnais, Picardie, Auvergne.

Manufacturing of pewter continued during the 19th century, often of rather poor quality.

19th – 20th Century : in the middle of the 19th C, the renewal of pewter began with Jules BRATEAU, who first produced objects inspired by the Renaissance, and later of typically "Art Nouveau" design.

Jules Brateau - Les Sciences et les Arts 1887/1889

Many well-known artists worked on pewter during this period : Jules DESBOIS, Léon KANN, Raoul LARCHE, Auguste MOREAU, etc.
In Britain, Archibald KNOX made several designs for TUDRIC pewter.
In germany, KAYSERZINN started in 1894 (Jugendstil) ; Hugo LEVEN, Hermann FEURER, Jose Maria OLBRICHT, made numerous designs for pewter.

KAYSERZINN n° 4358 1900/1902	Jules DESBOIS circa 1900

Art Déco : original production focused on the design ; the forms are hammered as in dinanderie. Renowned artists have worked on pewter : Maurice DAURAT, Jean DESPRES, Jean DUNAND.

PLASAIT, circa 1930/1940

Marks : used since medieval times, at first to testify the quality, then to levy a tax.

Town marks - Louis XIV ordinances :

LYON 1674 not well observed,repealed in 1676.	PARIS 1691 common pewter shall be markedwith a crowned C	PARIS 1691 fine pewter shall be markedwith a crowned F

The recently conquered provinces did not pay the tax :
ALSACE, ARTOIS, FLANDRE, FRANCHE-COMTE

Master marks :

Mathurin MAUCOMBLE À PARIS	BEL À CAMBRAI	Jean-Jacques ISENHEIM À STRASBOURG
crowned hammer marks : pewterers emblemfrom Middle-Agesto late 18th C.On each side,the master's initials,and below,the initial of the town	crowned rose marks : show, since the 16th C.,the best quality(metal coming from England, marked with the Tudor rose).Used everywhere in Europe,and in the north of France till late 19th C.	Angel with the scales marks : certify the qualityof the alloy(symbol of Justice).Used mainly in the north of France, Germany and northern Europe.