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Gilbert Marks: an exceptional Arts & Crafts talent
On November 12th, 2009 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
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.
‘Sixpenny’ bargains
On August 13th, 2009 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
gilt-stamped artwork from the front cover of Fred. W. Burgess's Silver: Pewter: Sheffield Plate, after a photograph of a 'SILVER SUGAR-BASKET In the Adam Style. Dated 1784.'
My bookish father once denied himself the luxury of buying a volume with the intriguing title, Neolithic Dew-ponds and Cattle-ways. It so nagged at him that on his next day off he returned to the bookshop and its sixpenny bargains (this, incidentally, was in 1926), only to find that the book had disappeared. The proprietor protested that he’d ever had such a title, shooting his young customer that look which clearly said, ‘liar!’ It was an incident that my father never forget; the memory of it still haunted him sixty years later.
Recently I was teetering on the edge of making a similar decision when I found a copy of Fred. W. Burgess’s Silver: Pewter: Sheffield Plate, published in London in 1921 in Routledge’s ‘Home Connoisseur Series,’ but murmuring in my ear, so to speak, was the lesson of the vanished Neolithic Dew-ponds. I paid the asking price (£4.50) and left with my new purchase wrapped in a brown paper bag.
To tell the truth I had never heard of Mr Burgess. His work was clearly very out of date and full of stale opinions and inaccuracies. But when I read his Preface, I immediately warmed to him: ‘This volume,’ he wrote, ‘is not a book for the advanced expert so much as for the amateur and those who as ”home connoisseurs” desire to know something about their own treasures.’ Frankly, I cannot think of a better premise upon which to enthuse a fresh generation of collectors.
A tale of two supper parties
On July 16th, 2009 myfamilysilver wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
One day in 1906 a writer for the The Sporting Times strolled into the London shop of The Goldsmiths’ & Silversmiths’ Co Ltd (not to be confused with the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths), to buy some little silver and enamel boxes. These were meant for the guests to a Guy Fawkes supper party he was to host on 5 November at the famous Romano’s restaurant in the Strand.
His purchases secured, he was taken aside by a director of the shop who showed him a special order, recently completed by its Silver Department. It took the form of a miniature silver dining table, its silver ‘table cloth’ being engraved with facsimile signatures of the distinguished cast then playing at the Haymarket Theatre in a revival of F. Anstey‘s successful comedy, The Man from Blankley’s. This intriguing object, exactly the kind of piece at which The Goldsmiths’ & Silversmiths’ Co’s craftsmen excelled, was about to be presented to the author, the table itself being a reference to the play’s climactic supper party scene.
And what of the Guy Fawkes night supper? Fun was had by all, we are told, and the little boxes were greatly appreciated by the lady guests, most of whom were young actresses. One in particular, ‘a dear little soul from La Belle France,’ was the fascinating Gaby Deslys, the soon-to-be grande passion, and recipient of showers of costly jewellery, of Gordon Selfridge, founder of Selfridge’s department store in Oxford Street, which this year celebrates its centenary.
See here for pieces by The Goldsmiths & Silversmiths Co. currently listed at myfamilysilver.com
The cast of F. Anstey's The Man from Blankley's, revived at the Haymarket Theatre, London, 24 March 1906
The one that got away
On July 9th, 2009 myfamilysilver wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
Ask any auctioneer’s cataloguer if he or she ever handled an object that got away: vanished from view, leaving the uneasy feeling that a better job could have been done. The answer will almost certainly be ‘yes.’ Life in a busy auction house often sweeps experts along on a tide of new objects arriving daily, each one clamouring, as it were, for attention.
As a cataloguer of many years’ standing myself, I can certainly relate. One piece I remember in particular when at Sotheby’s Belgravia in the 1970s was a silver candlestick mounted with mother of pearl, cabochon stones and carved ivory. The consignor, a dealer, knew nothing of its provenance and few expectations as regards value. We settled on a reserve and a few days’ later I sat down to write a catalogue entry. This was no great chore because the candlestick was unusual and nicely made. But I had a hard time in deciding where it had been made and when, let alone guessing who its maker might have been. My colleagues were no better informed, so I feebly wrote, ‘early 20th Century, probably German.’
The candlestick failed to sell, was returned to the owner and disappeared.
Then, several years later I discovered that it had been made by the Strassburg goldsmith Philipp Oberle. He had also created a number of objects in blackened metal and silver-gilt set with semi-precious stones, ivory and enamel with which he had shown successfully at the Brussels Exposition of 1910.
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from Die Goldschmiedekunst, Leipzig, 27 August 1910, p. 333
Looking at the brighter side of the Budget.
On April 27th, 2009 myfamilysilver wrote on the subject of Press and Media.
As expected, the UK government’s annual Budget statement makes pretty grim reading: tax rises and spending cuts for years to come.
However, in stark contrast to falling financial markets and property prices in the first quarter of the year, the Royal Institute of Surveyors has recently reported an upsurge in interest in the purchasing of fine arts and antiques. The dramatic turnaround was led by jewellery and silver which are traditionally seen as “safe havens” during periods of financial turbulence. The collapse of equity has reminded people, once again, that precious metals will never revert to zero value (unlike some infamous banking shares).
Nevertheless, in comparison to other commodities silver still remains at a historically low value, recommending it strongly to investors. For example, Money Week has figured out that in 1980 (at the height of the Bunker Hunt silver boom) you could buy an average house in the UK for the equivalent of 1000 ounces of silver at £50 per oz.
Today, the same house would cost you (if you could get a mortgage…) 15,000 ounces of silver at £10 per oz. This margin may narrow during the recession but in simple terms it still means that residential property is over-valued and silver is too under-valued. Therefore, moving capital from one to the other makes sense.
Furthermore, a final though to leave you on. It’s very difficult to eat dinner with a semi-detached house!
The Health Benefits of Silver!
On April 3rd, 2009 myfamilysilver wrote on the subject of Press and Media.
The life enhancing ability of silver has been obvious to me for a long time. After all, who would not prefer a drawing room lit by Georgian candlesticks?
But the health benefits of silver? These were less well known to me. However, according to a recent advertising campaign by Nivea whose variant of ‘Silver Protect’ deodorants suggest otherwise.
Silver has strong anti-bacterial qualities which can protect the user against infection. This characteristic was noticed (if not fully understood) by our ancestors in antiquity who stored essentials such as wine, water and vinegar in silver jars.
More recently, Australian settlers in the outback apparently suspended antique silver forks in water to preserve and sterilise it. Obviously, silver has always been used for display and to demonstrate wealth but maybe its use to preserve health came first but could only be exploited by the wealthy? Sort of chicken and egg scenario: i.e. those that ate with silver cutlery not only had a better chance of survival but time to make more money and acquire greater power.
It’s a lesson worth heading in these recessionary times. It may be an old wives’ tale but I think Nivea may be on to something…. What do you think?
My Family Silver in the press.
On March 3rd, 2009 myfamilysilver wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
Silver buyers have never had it so good.
On February 23rd, 2009 myfamilysilver wrote on the subject of Latest News.
Picking up my theme that canny silver buyers have never had it so good, Country Life excitedly reported this week (11 February) that “changes in lifestyle have wrought havoc with the silver market” despite a recent steep rise in the bullion value of silver from £3 to £6 an ounce.
Flying in the face of the strong results in a flurry of auctions before Christmas (reported elsewhere on this page) the magazine declares that “display silver isn’t fashionable”. The investment advice is to buy work by late twentieth century silversmiths such as Gerald Benney, Leslie Durbin and (my personal favourite) Malcolm Appleby. I don’t disagree that collecting post-war British silver is an enriching and potentially rewarding experience.
We are very keen to promote contemporary silversmithing on My Family Silver, hence our support of British Silver Week. But I do object to the oft-repeated stereotype that antique silver is somehow redundant as if a modern teapot is technologically superior to one made in the eighteenth century. Country Life also states, without any evidence, that “abundant 18th and 19th century pieces have dropped in value significantly”. Well, I haven’t seen that but I do accept that there is an awful lot of silver out there looking for a new owner. The reason why? Our ancestors viewed their silver as a decorative addition to their domestic lives not, as we all too often do, as an expensive liability to be insured and (worse!) cleaned. We need to re-adjust our cultural approach to this wonderful material and get it back on the table and into everyday use. I do agree with Country Life on one point, however. Echoing my recent message, the magazine reports that “canteens of good cutlery…can be bought for less than the cost of new stainless steel – good news if you need cutlery”.
My question is, Who doesn’t?
Visting 18 Folgate Street.
On February 18th, 2009 myfamilysilver wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
I had the enormous pleasure of visiting 18 Folgate Street last night. This is the house in the City of London lovingly decorated by the late Dennis Severs to re-enact the living conditions of an 18th century Huguenot merchant family.
The detail is extraordinary and the sensation of time travel as you wander the candlelit rooms is overwhelming. The “game”, as Severs described it, is to believe that the inhabitants have hastily fled, or hidden, shortly before you stumbled into their house.
The illusion is maintained by hushed “noises off” and artfully left evidence such as a half-eaten boiled egg, unfinished glass of wine or recently filled chamber pot. This conceit works brilliantly, disorientating the visitor whose imagination is assailed by the cunning visual and sensory effects. As Severs intended, it is a stunning experience which cannot be recommended highly enough.
The house is deeply satisfying for lovers of silver too, because in almost every one of its ten rooms items of domestic silver-from kettles to pickle forks-are seen in recently abandoned and unselfconscious use. This restores life to objects more familiar to us in locked showcases or shop windows.
It is also another stark reminder that we should use our silver rather than simply collect or hoard it. With the press reporting an upsurge in entertaining at home during the economic downturn, now is the time to polish up our antique silver to add some sparkle and elegance to the gloom.
After all, a decent service of antique flatware and cutlery is barely more expensive than a modern stainless steel equivalent, but hugely more rewarding financially and emotionally!
John Culme, who for many years has been connected with Sotheby's Silver Department, is author of several books and articles, including The Directory of Gold and Silversmiths, 1838-1914, published in 1987, and co-author with Nicholas Rayner of The Jewels of the Duchess of Windsor. He is also a Liveryman of the Goldsmiths' Company, London.
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