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Mousers, moggies and champion Persians
On December 3rd, 2009 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
‘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.
Flatters and stampers: secrets of the 18th Century London silver trade
On November 19th, 2009 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
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.
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.
Old silver in the miniature world of cigarette cards
On October 29th, 2009 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
no. 12 in the ‘Old Silver’ series of 25 lithograph cigarette cards issued in 1924 by W.D. & H.O. Wills, Bristol and London: a George II silver wine cistern, Paul de Lamerie, London, 1726, made for the 4th Earl of Scarsdale and sold on his death to agents of the Empress Anna of Russia. This magnificent piece, weighing over 2,600 ounces, returned to London from the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, for the first time in nearly 250 years for the Paul de Lamerie exhibition at Goldsmiths’ Hall in 1990
Collectors of cigarette cards and admirers of antique silver may not appear to have much in common. Since the first cigarette cards were issued in 1875 their publishers searched far and wide for interesting subjects. To the original sets, depicting actresses, baseball players, boxers and Native American heroes, all chosen to appeal to the largely male population of cigarette smokers, other subjects were added. Before long sets of cigarette cards became miniature illustrated guides: John Player & Sons, for instance, issued a series of 50 in 1909 of British mansions and their owners’ coats-of-arms; and W.D. & H.O. Wills published a series of 40 in 1938 entitled ‘The King’s Art Treasures,’ which included a Charles II silver-gilt wall sconce, complete with accompanying text.
In 1924 Wills had issued a set of 25 ‘Old Silver’ cards, which attempted to give a glimpse of English silver from the 14th to the early 19th Centuries. The most surprising object to be included was a virtually unknown piece from Paul de Lamerie‘s workshops: a gigantic wine cistern of 1726 made for the 4th Earl of Scarsdale (1682-1736) and purchased soon after his death for the Empress Anna of Russia (1693-1740). Wills’s text, unhappily based on imperfect information, confused this cistern with another bearing the mark of Philip Rollos, London, 1699, and coat-of-arms of the Duke of Kingston, which is believed to have been given to Catherine the Great (1729-1796) by the Duchess of Kingston, the notorious Elizabeth Chudleigh.
nos. 4, 8 and 11 in Wills’s ‘Old Silver’ series of cigarette cards: an Elizabeth I bell salt; a pair of snuffers, snuffers stand, chamber candlesticks and extinguisher, circa 1690; and George I coffee pot, Paul de Lamerie, London, 1717
- Various items of interest are currently listed on myfamilysilver.com, including the following, maker’s mark of Paul de Lamerie: a pair of sauceboats and a soup tureen and cover; also various salt cellars, snuffers, &c, and coffee pots, &c.
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The Pious Pelican
On October 23rd, 2009 myfamilysilver wrote on the subject of Fairbairn's,Uncategorized.
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A pelican in her piety
A recent article in The Daily Telegraph sheds light on one of our most popular crests – a “pelican in her piety” or, in laymen’s language, a pelican feeding her young. As Christopher Howse explains, this moving image has been an allegorical symbol for the Eucharist since at least the second century. It was used as the frontispiece for the King James or Authorised Version of the bible in 1611. With various minor differences, this image is the crest for dozens of families. myfamilysilver.com usually has items of antique silver listed displaying
the crest. A good example is engraved on this pair of silver snuffers listed by Schredds
Pair Silver Snuffers 1814
When silver was 60 US cents per ounce
On October 22nd, 2009 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
inexpensive silver and silver-mounted gifts, advertised in London in 1896 by The Goldsmiths’ & Silversmiths’ Co and Mappin Brothers: a table bell, a shaving mug with silver-handled badger hair brush, a glass toilet scent bottle, a glass claret jug, a sweetmeat dish, and an S. Mordan & Co dip pen and propelling pencil in morocco leather case (from The Graphic, September and December 1896)
News of silver ore discovered in 1883 at Broken Hill, Australia, gradually spread via the world’s Press, especially when it was realised that the deposit dwarfed even that of the Comstock Lode found in Nevada in 1859. The price of bullion silver, long stable at a little over $1US per ounce, began to fall in 1885 in response to increased supplies.
One of the surprising effects of this drop was to encourage manufacturing silversmiths on both sides of the Atlantic to step up production of inexpensive silver novelties. Because these were modest, often die-stamped articles, making costs were slashed and profits rose. Throughout the 1890s and beyond the market was saturated with all kinds of silver- (and gold-) mounted items, and other oddments suitable for christening, wedding and Christmas gifts, from babies’ rattles to pin cushions and pepperettes and sets of little salts.
After 1884 the buying public was treated to yet another choice: the hardened rubber, leak-proof fountain pen. The market was dominated by the American firms of Mabie, Todd & Co (‘Swan’ pens), established in 1860; and Waterman’s, whose range included some with gold and silver mounts, for which marks were entered at Goldsmiths’ Hall in 1902. Waterman’s aggressive advertising was responsible for huge UK sales, which by 1912 had reached 1.5 million pens per annum. That year, their British agents, L. & C. Hardtmuth, caused a stir by launching onto London streets a motor delivery van, half Hardtmuth ‘Koh-i-noor’ pencil point, half Waterman’s pen nib.
L. & C. Hardtmuth Ltd’s delivery van, 1912, advertising its ‘Koh-i-noor’ pencils and Waterman’s ‘Ideal’ fountain pens. This brass finished novelty was designed by F.E. Potter Ltd, advertising agents, and built on a 15 HP Napier Commercial with High Fusion Magneto Ignition by W.H. Arnold & Co, Great Central Motor Works, Baker Street, London. (The Stationery Trades Journal, London, April 1912, p. 170)
- Various items of interest are currently listed on myfamilysilver.com, including examples of items from The Goldsmiths’ & Silversmiths’ Co and successor, Mappin Brothers / Mappin & Webb, Sampson Mordan & Co and a Waterman’s ‘Ideal’ fountain pen
Elegantly wrought in frosted silver
On October 15th, 2009 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
a Victorian silver table snuff box in the form of a mess tent, Joseph Angell, London, 1850, presented to Major Loftus Francis Jones on his retirement from the 96th Regiment of Foot. The gilt interior of this unique object is engraved with an inscription, recording the fact that Jones (d. 1853) had been with the regiment since its formation in 1824. (photo by courtesy of Sotheby’s, London, 5 March 1970, lot 89)
Recently someone asked me if I had a favourite among the many silversmiths whose work I had examined over the years. My head spun at such a question! Few apart from my colleagues in the field have been so fortunate to handle so much, although even a casual museum visitor cannot fail to acknowledge the glorious legacy we have from silversmiths’ endeavours, past and present.
My answer to that question depends on so many factors, not least the latest fascinating piece I have been researching or cataloguing, in which case Paul de Lamerie springs to mind. Then again, certain silversmiths were specialists, like Thomas Pitts whose workshop was known for its epergnes, or Ebenezer Coker and the Cafes for candlesticks.
Under torture, I might have to admit that a favourite is the Angell family business of silversmiths which flourished in London throughout the 19th Century, particularly that of Joseph Angell (1816-1891) whose stock, some of which was enamelled, attracted so much attention at the Great Exhibition of 1851. An unusual example of the Angells’ silver, a special order, was a table snuff box in the form of a mess tent made for presentation by his brother officers to Major Loftus Francis Jones on his retirement from the 96th Regiment of Foot. Detachments of the latter having been deployed for convict ships heading for the Antipodes, The Courier, a Tasmanian newspaper, reported in February 1851 on Major Jones’s box, telling its readers that it was ‘elegantly wrought in frosted silver.’
- Various snuff boxes are currently listed on myfamilysilver.com, as well as other interesting items from Paul de Lamerie, Ebenezer Coker and William Cafe, and the Angells
A brand new online silver retailer: The story so far.
On January 16th, 2009 myfamilysilver wrote on the subject of Latest News.
Building a website of the complexity and brilliance of myfamilysilver.com is quite a challenge, one that we are tackling with both hands to provide you with the best possible experience.
Writing books (my other hobby) seems like a walk in the park compared to collating, digitising and loading the details and crest images of some 40,000 families into the Crestfinder.
Fortunately, those clever web chaps at Datadial have not only achieved the seemingly impossible with their database skills but have also created a thing of great and lasting beauty. Thousands of crests come alive at the touch of a button. I can’t wait to let you loose on it nearer the time.
Even a heraldic amateur (like me) could spend hours of fun on it. Yet still, the benefits to the silver trade will be overwhelming. The icing on this considerably large and tasty cake will be the listing of regimental badges which will allow visitors to search for silver which is engraved with the badge of their old regiment. The interest in military history is huge so we expect this to be a highly popular addition to Crestfinder.
What is Crestfinder?
It’s one of the many innovations coming to myfamilysilver.com. It’s a one of a kind, purpose built database for the speedy identification of family crests by name or blazon! We’ll be talking more about the Crestfinder soon.
In closing, I’d like to pose a question to help us design the uploading of items into the site by our dealers. How many different, legally recognised standards have been used in the production of silver over the years? Obviously Sterling and Brittania in the UK, and 800 standard on the continent. But can you think of any more?
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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