My Family Silver

three unusual silver salts with gilt and oxidised decoration from Anthony Elson

myfamilysilver.com is brimful of old silver for all tastes, useful and ornamental, but what I didn’t realise until recently was that it is also a showcase for contemporary pieces.

Tim Lukes’s appropriately named ‘Drink like a fish’ parcel-gilt silver jug and beaker recall that brief spell in the late 1870s and 1880s when Tiffany & Co created a range of objects inspired by Japanese art and workmanship. With his designs, Mr Lukes has revived the idea to create original pieces which cleverly convey watery environments inhabited by golden carp.

The ‘Packet’ dishes for nuts and bonbons by Rebecca Joselyn, which look just like the silver paper wrapping of various lines of chocolate confectionery, are in reality much more sturdy. In her own words, she creates each individually by ‘crumpling them over a stake.’ The result is an amusing twist on an old idea: the trompe l’oeil effects of pre-revolutionary Russian ‘folded napkin’ silver, for instance. Another of today’s silversmiths with strikingly fresh  ideas is Malcolm Appleby, who famously lives and works in a former railway station.  His hand made and hand engraved ‘three sided’ bowl is typical of his work, with its richly textured finish contrasting the silver of its exterior with the deep gilding of its interior.

‘Coloured’ silver has always fascinated me, like the extraordinary salts made by Anthony Elson. Here he shows three: one silver-gilt and oxidised, another chemically oxidised a blue/green colour and the third similarly treated to create a beautiful blue hue.

Tim Luke’s parcel-gilt silver ‘Drink like a fish’ jug and beaker

‘Sir Roger de Coverley and the Gipsies,’ a silver group made in the workshops of Joseph Angell, London, about 1850, inspired by Joseph Addison’s tale, which first appeared in The Spectator, 21 July 1711.
The much-loved character of Sir Roger would have been familiar to many, his exploits having been reprinted several times during the 18th and 19th Centuries. He also featured in Sir Roger de Coverley; or, The Merry Christmas, a dramatic entertainment produced at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in 1746; and in Sir Roger de Coverley; or, The Widow and Her Wooers, a drama at the Olympic Theatre in 1851. Furthermore, the artists Thomas Stothard (who sometime provided designs for silver to Rundell, Bridge & Rundell) and Charles Robert Leslie had both chosen ‘Sir Roger de Coverley and the Gipsies’ as a subject for paintings, the latter winning praise for his at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1829.
(photo: unknown, circa 1853)

The production of so-called ‘narrative’ plate – pieces which ‘tell a story’ - was by no means confined to England, but it was in London during much of the 19th century that silversmiths produced some of the best examples. Scenes of bucolic peace or episodes from the myths of Antiquity had decorated silver cups, cream jugs and boxes and dishes for generations, but it was probably the appearance of Flaxman’s ‘Shield of Achilles‘ in 1821, with its wide border of figures inspired by Homer’s Iliad, that began a fashion for finely wrought objects that were intended to elevate mere silver and silver-gilt into precious works of art.

Rundell’s, the firm responsible for the ‘Shield of Achilles,’ was inevitably involved in the manufacture of other such pieces, such as the ‘Crecy Shield’ (William Bateman, London, 1834), but it was in the hands of Garrard’s and Storr & Mortimer/Hunt & Roskell’s designers and craftsmen that in the 1840s and 1850s the genre flourished. Both firms displayed magnificent examples at the Great Exhibition of 1851, most of which had been made as testimonials or race ‘cups,’ but a worthy, less celebrated entrant to this field was Joseph Angell. With his silver group, ‘Sir Roger de Coverley and the Gipsies,’ made from models by John Henning junior, he had hit upon an old, familiar subject that with nostalgic warmth recalled the age before factories and speeding locomotives. As the Athenaeum remarked approvingly, ‘Mr. Angell could not have chosen a scene more thoroughly English than this.’

• Various items of interest are currently listed on myfamilysilver.com, including pieces from Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, William Bateman, Garrard’s, Paul Storr, Mortimer & Hunt and Hunt & Roskell

a silver jewel box, William Snelling Hawaday, London, about 1905
(The Art Journal, London, July 1905, p. 217)

Among the most accomplished of ‘gifted amateur’ working silversmiths who entered their marks in London in the late Victorian and Edwardian period was Gilbert Marks (1861-1905). His work, much admired during his short working life, is now eagerly sought by collectors interested in the Arts & Crafts Movement.

He was not alone, however; many others from  backgrounds far outside the trade were keen silversmiths, such as Alice, Countess Amherst (1854-1933), whose efforts in making small, spot-hammered plates are a great rarity. Another, more accomplished silver worker was Major Robert R. Woodhouse (1833-1912), father-in-law of the 3rd Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, who entered his first marks in 1890 and his last in 1906. He is known for a silver bell push and a two-handled tazza in ancient Greek style, which are likely to have been made as gifts for friends and family, as well as miniature pieces which eventually found their way into Queen Mary’s dolls’ house.

Another noted amateur silversmith was William Snelling Hadaway (1872-1941), an American citizen who lived in London from about 1897 until 1908, when he became superintendent of the Madras Government School of Arts in India. He is chiefly remembered for a number of silver objects with dolphins and other marine motifs, including a remarkable toilet set which, says The Art Journal (1905) was ‘designed for a special purpose.’ Both he and his wife, Jean, were enamellists, which accounts for the coloured plaques which sometimes enrich his work.

detail of an embossed, pierced and chased silver dressing table mirror frame,
from a toilet set decorated with blue and green enamel and inset with
chrysophrase and turquoise, William Snelling Hadaway, London, 1904
(photo: courtesy of Sotheby’s, London)

• A number of interesting enamelled items are listed on myfamilysilver.com.

Christmas pattern novelties in electroplate: left, a cake basket,
the handle formed as naturalistically enamelled berried holly leaves,
Mappin & Webb of Sheffield, 1895; and, right, a ‘Robin’ pattern folding
’satchel’ biscuit box, probably made in Sheffield by Fenton Brothers
(using William Staniforth’s patent), retailed by
the Goldsmiths’ Alliance Ltd of London, circa 1885

Secrecy in the silver industry, especially in London in pre-World War I days, is largely responsible for the difficulty researchers have in uncovering so much about this fascinating trade. Details of workshop practices, designers and design sources, even the names of craftsmen, from working silversmiths to chasers and engravers, are all but lost. With the publication of the first specialist periodical, the The Goldsmith (1869-1872), however, we begin to hear of such as the trade’s progress and the tribulations of bankrupt goldsmiths and jewellers. Concerns arising from regular financial recessions are voiced, by workshop owners and representatives of the retail sector; conversely there are perennial reports of busy times, particularly in the weeks leading up to Christmas, when overtime had men – and women and sometimes children – at their benches from dawn to dusk, seven days a week.

In spite of this, the demand for silver and electroplate in seasonal patterns appears not to have been very strong, although jewellers did a brisk business in New Year brooches: 1-8-9-6, say, in gold or platinum, embellished with brilliants and pearls. Plenty of these survive but collectors of silver would be lucky to find many Christmas style cake baskets or biscuit boxes. Some silversmiths, especially Russian (Sasikov) and American (Tiffany and Gorham), produced remarkable designs in ‘Arctic’ vases, cups, tubs and wine coolers, with icebergs, frostfalls and polar bears, but these patterns were intended to emphasise the suitability of a vessel’s use rather than any reference to Yuletide.

design for an ‘Arctic’ pattern vase in silver or electroplate in a photograph of the 1860s/1870s
from a trade catalogue issued by Maison J. Casses, Séguin & Co of Paris;
polar bears, probably after models by Eugene J. Soligny, who spent his
early career in Paris, also appear on various silver vessels made by
Tiffany & Co, New York, in the late 1860s and 1870s.

• various items from Mappin & Webb, Fenton Brothers, the Goldsmiths’ Alliance (formerly A.B. Savory & Sons),  Tiffany & Co and Gorham are currently listed on myfamilysilver.com
  

the Goodwood Cup of 1869, Edward Barnard & Sons, London, 1869, for the retail goldsmith, J.W. Benson of 25 Old Bond Street, London, ‘a magnificent Old English Silver Tankard and Cover, modelled by Mr. J.E. Boehm, the subject being taken from Frith’s celebrated painting of ”The Derby Day,” [it] is wrought out with consummate skill, both in the modelling and chasing, the figures being oxidized on a pearl white back-ground… (Jackson’s Oxford Journal, Oxford, London, Saturday, 31 July 1869, p. 3e)
The image on the right shows the piece as it was in 1977; that on the left as it probably originally appeared in 1869.
(photo: courtesy of Sotheby’s, London: Mentmore sale, 23 May 1977, lot 1666)

Looking at the photograph in my last blog of Hunt & Roskell’s display at the 1862 International Exhibition, one could be forgiven for thinking that the lighting was amiss; the silver is so snowy white. In fact, this image records perfectly how most display plate would have appeared . The prevailing fashion was to ‘colour’ silver in some way, either by frosting (as in the Hunt & Roskell display) or by combinations of gilding, partly gilding (known as parcel-gilding), pearling or oxidizing, the latter producing a black surface.

Techniques for colouring silver (and gold) were developed in antiquity and have been used in various ways ever since. In modern times, the silversmith’s everyday repertoire included interesting finishes for his work. Silver-gilt, because of its relative durability, has survived in great quantities; but silver objects treated with heat, acids or other agents to produce black, white and coloured tints are much more delicate. A rare 1760s, London-made blackened silver cup  appeared at auction a few years ago only to create confusion because its unusual colour was nearly mistaken for ordinary tarnish.

Some French and Russian silversmiths at the Great Exhibition of 1851 caused considerable comment for their unusual oxidized work, whereas English silversmiths relied mostly on the contrast of brightly polished areas juxtaposed with dead white frosting.

The possibility of colouring silver may not be familiar to many, but Richard Hughes and Michael Rowe have dealt splendidly with the subject in their book, The Colouring, Bronzing and Patination of Metals (1991).

two marine pattern silver salts in the manner of Nicholas Sprimont (1716-1771),
created with naturalistically-coloured silver crayfish and crab by Smith & Harris, manufacturing goldsmiths and silversmiths, London, and shown at the ‘Supermodels’ exhibition, Goldsmiths’ Hall, 2001
(photo: courtesy of Smith & Harris, London)

• various items from the workshops of Hunt & Roskell and Edward Barnard & Sons are currently listed on myfamilysilver.com 
  

a photograph of Hunt & Roskell’s display of silver race cups, candelabra, testimonials, wine coolers, &c,
at the International Exhibition of 1862, South Kensington, London;
a number of the pieces shown are known to have survived
Hunt & Roskell was the commercial successor to (Paul) Storr & Mortimer.
(photo: The London Stereoscopic & Photographic Co Ltd, London, 1862)

Ask any commercial photographer and he will tell you that the most challenging objects he has to capture are those made of silver: they dazzle or vanish into black or white backgrounds. Probably the very first photograph ever taken of silver, a calotype by William Henry Fox Talbot made between 1844 and 1846, shows the problem to perfection: a pair 1750s candlesticks, an Elkington coffee pot, &c, are harsh combinations of darkness and brightness. Although the same disappointing results were achieved of silver by the photographers who recorded some exhibits at the Great Exhibition of 1851, there are plenty of photographs surviving from the second half of the 19th Century which prove just how useful a medium photography became to the silver and jewellery trades.

The archive of Edward Barnard & Sons, the London manufacturing silversmiths, includes an extraordinary photographic record (circa 1850-1940) of the firm’s work. An unknown number of photographs were sent by Victorian manufacturers and retained by the Patent Office in their registration of copyright designs. Photographs were taken at most exhibitions, large and small, many of the most successful being those made by The London Stereoscopic & Photographic Co Ltd at the International Exhibition in 1862. Photography was even harnessed at that early period by manufacturers for illustrated trade catalogues, although such publications must have been expensive to produce.

Photography also became a pleasant way to record a gift of silver, sometimes with the recipient in evidence, for distribution to subscribers or for sale in local shops.

a page of  die-stamped ‘Sterling Silver Novelties’ from the
CATALOG AND PRICE LIST OF DIAMOND, GOLD AND PLATED JEWELRY AND SILVER THINGS
published by Robert S. Gatter, maker, 19 Maiden Lane, New York City, 1900
(photo: unknown, 1900)

• Various items of interest are currently listed on myfamilysilver.com, including items made by the following silversmiths: Hunt & Roskell, Paul Storr, Elkington & Co and Edward Barnard & Sons
  

‘Our Cats’ Dinner for London cat’s-meat men at the City of New York Restaurant, Holborn, 1900,
presided over by Louis Wain (standing, centre).
‘They were a hilarious assemblage, and greeted the appearance of the soup, the roast beef, and the boiled legs of mutton with prolonged cries of ”Mee-att!” in the familiar notes of the street.’ (Black and White Budget, London, 6 January 1901, p. 514)
(photo: W.D. Dando, London, 1900)

One of the more familiar street cries of Victorian and Edwardian London was that of the cat’s-meat man. The daily sound of his cart’s wheels and his ‘Co! Mee-att!’ call signalled the sudden appearance of cats and dogs, eager for his cargo of horse flesh and beef scraps. As early as 1837 some 2,000 persons were supported by this plebeian metropolitan trade. Lowly it might have been, but in 1900 a dinner was organized for the cat’s-meat men at the City of New York Restaurant, Holborn, at which a letter was read from Princess (soon to be Queen) Alexandra, regretting that she could not be present.

Such royal recognition might appear merely eccentric were it not for the development of cat fancying as a hobby, particularly among ladies, and some gentlemen, living in comfortable circumstances. The artist Harrison Weir, who organized the first English cat show in 1871, established the National Cat Club in 1887. Another founder member was Louis Wain, the artist best known for his cat studies, who presided at the 1900 cat’s-meat men dinner.

With the appearance of special types of cats, enthusiastically bred by such luminaries as Lady Marcus Beresford, the proud owner of ‘Tachin’ and ‘Cambodia,’ two Siamese cats sent to her from India by Lord William Beresford, it is little wonder that prizes were offered and that those prizes took the form of the traditional silver cup. Miss Gertrude Willoughby’s beautiful Persian champion, ‘Fulmer Zaida‘ was the winner of several.

Miss Gertrude Willoughby (afterwards Baroness Decies) and her famous champion Persian cat,
‘Fulmer Zaida’ with silver prize cup and cover
(photos: left, W. Davey, Harrogate, circa 1890; right, Miss Maude Craigie Halkett, 1900)

• All manner of silver cups are available through myfamilysilver.com, as are a couple of items featuring cats.

a selection of gold and silver whip handles shown by Swaine & Adeney and Sangster,
both of London, at the Great Exhibition of 1851;
the design of the central example, by Swaine & Adeney,
was emblematic of the Exhibition, with figures representing the four quarters of the globe
(from The Illustrated Exhibitor, London, 6 December 1851, p. 510,
and The Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue, London, 1851, p. 313)

A visitor to the Great Exhibition of 1851 thought few gentlemen there ‘and possibly few of the ladies’ could have failed to admire the handsome show of riding whips by English, French, Belgian, Spanish and American manufacturers. The best whips were, and always had been, silver- (or gold-) mounted and the different types, from strong whips for coachmen to those for children, were legion. So too were patterns: Mrs Barnard, a whipmaker of Fleet Street, was indignant when in 1766 some of the best of her stock was stolen, including one ‘mounted with treble Silver Engine turned buttons [and] a Diamond-buttoned Jockey, the Handle of each Silver stitched.’

While in 1821 a London jeweller, John Brogden, was prosecuted for thrashing another member of the trade with his whip, most were used for legitimate purposes and, unsurprisingly in that age of universal equine transport, were everywhere in evidence. Swaine & Adeney, whipmakers to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and probably the busiest of the London firms, was represented at many international exhibitions; ‘Blessed is the steed on whose fleet flanks such whips are ornamentally applied!’ thought one New Yorker when the firm showed there in 1853.

The more expensive whips were sometimes very elaborate, made from combinations of exotic materials including clarified rhinoceros hide and carved ivory. Chowrie riding whips with fly-whisk horse-hair plumes for use in India were a staple item, and in 1851 William Slark of Burlington Arcade sold flexible rubber whips mounted in turquoise-set gold.

two celebrated Victorian equestrian performers with whips: Louis Francisco, trainer and rider (circa 1862),
and Jenny Louise Hengler, noted as ‘a graceful exponent of haute ėcole riding‘ (circa 1872)
(photos: John Culme’s Footlight Notes Collection)

• Several items items of equestrian interest are currently featured on myfamilysilver.com.

a George III silver teapot, maker’s mark of Hester Bateman, London, 1783,
assembled in the manner of a kit from sheet silver, with applied mechanically milled beaded borders,
sold at Christie’s, London, 7 March 1990, lot 130
(photo: courtesy of Christie’s, London)

When in 1959 David S. Shure published his monograph on Hester Bateman, its subtitle was Queen of English Silversmiths. The author gave the impression of a craftswoman adept at all the skills of a  working silversmith. Indeed, one of his readers was afterwards very shocked to be told that Mrs Bateman may never actually have worked at the bench. It was her sons, Peter (1740-1825) and Jonathan (1747-1791), both trained silversmiths, who seem to have run the business. Under them Bateman’s became one of London’s busiest silver workshops. In addition to making a wide range of domestic and decorative items, they were also silver flatters: suppliers of sheet silver for use by other workshops. By 1802 their old horse-powered flatting mill had been replaced by a steam engine.

Behind latter-day myths spun around 18th Century London silver trade characters like Hester Bateman lies the reality of a highly competitive industry, ready to embrace new ideas and techniques. The notion that silversmiths invariably prepared their own sheet metal preparatory to raising hollowware, for instance, is dispelled when we find that there were several specialist silver flatters working from the 1730s and ’40s.

Other mechanical aids were also evident at this time, like the Clerkenwell stamping press advertised in 1765, ‘Where all Sorts of Toys and Trinkets are made in Gold, Silver, and Metal Gilt.’ And when Ebenezer Coker, the salver maker, announced his retirement (1774), he offered for sale ‘a large Collection of Metal Stamps for Waiters.’

detail of the back of a silver tablespoon bowl, die-stamped with a galleon,
maker’s mark of (?) William Cripps, London, 1758, sold at Bonhams, London, 24 Mar 2005, lot 191
(photo: courtesy of Bonhams, London)

• Several items from Ebenezer Coker’s workshop are currently featured on myfamilysilver.com, as are various items from the Bateman factory.

a silver dish with a chased chrysanthemum design by Gilbert Marks
(The Studio, London, September, 1895, p.220)

Forty years ago the ‘big three’ among English silversmiths were still considered to be the two Pauls (de Lamerie and Storr) and Hester Bateman. They were also the first to have books written about them, probably because so much from their workshops had survived: de Lamerie in 1935, Storr in 1954 and Bateman in 1959. Of more recent silversmiths almost nothing was heard, except, perhaps, for Omar Ramsden whose work was celebrated by a centenary exhibition in Birmingham in 1973.

Since then, however, determined efforts have been made by many researchers to broaden our view of the British silver industry. The result has been to add further fascinating details to what was already known about de Lamerie, Bateman, Storr and Ramsden and their respective worlds, as well as to pull from relative obscurity the work of dozens more excellent firms and gifted individuals.

Gilbert Leigh Marks (1861-1905) is one independent silversmith, who in a career of only about ten years, managed to produce a body of finely made objects of lasting beauty. Early admirers warmed to his style; The Art Journal (1897), for instance, noticed the finish of his bowls, vases and beakers: ‘the dull yet exquisite grey of unpolished silver.’ The Studio (1895), agreed, adding that his pieces were ‘not over-ornamented, pleasant plain spaces being left which served to accentuate the beauty of the designs.’

Marks’s patterns were from nature: chased flowers, leaves and fruit against softly patinated surfaces, with occasional observations of fish leaping through water.

a silver bowl, chased with a design of salmon leaping through water, signed ‘Gilbert Marks 1898,’ an inscription on the interior records that it was given as a Cowes Regatta prize that year by Albert Edward, Prince of Wales; it realised £51,600, including premium, when sold at Bonhams, London, in July 2008
(photo: courtesy of Bonhams, London)

• Various items of interest are currently listed on myfamilysilver.com, including a Newcastle Guild of Handicrafts silver jardinière in the Arts & Crafts style, hallmarked, Birmingham, 1906.