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Some contemporary silver at myfamilysilver.com
On February 18th, 2010 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
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
Box-his-Ears!
On September 17th, 2009 John Culme wrote on the subject of Uncategorized.
Rimmel‘s Vaporizer to be had in various styles and finishes, including silver plated and bronze, available at the time of the International Exhibition, London, 1862
Echoes of our Victorian ancestors’ love of perfumes, scents, colognes, nosegays and sweet vapours survive in many forms. Collectors have long sought scent flasks, vinaigrettes and perfume bottles of the period in silver, gold, glass, ceramics, enamel and other materials in patterns as diverse as the imagination can conjure. Rarer are Rimmel’s perfume fountains and vaporizers of the 1860s; or Piesse & Lubin‘s little joke, the Fountain Finger-Ring, designed to squirt mists of rose or frangipani into the unsuspecting face of any gentleman bold enough to squeeze a damsel’s hand!
But what of the contents of these charming bibelots? Fragrances were available in a dozen different forms to suit every mood. Piesse & Lubin operating from their headquarters, the Laboratory of Flowers, New Bond Street, catered to an entire spectrum of emotions, from sophisticated, with the Bosphorous Bouquet from the Valley of Sweet Waters, to silly, with Box-his-Ears (sequel to Stolen Kisses). Their Little Dorrit’s Nosegay was a novelty for the Christmas season of 1855, and a few years later the firm opened a Perfumery Boudoir at the Opera House, Covent Garden, for the sale of fans, bouquets, nosegays and neatly boxed perfumes and colognes. Not to be eclipsed, Rimmel won contracts in the 1860s and ’70s to provide scented programmes to several London theatres.
Popular as orange, violet and lily-of-the-valley were, ladies craved the exotic: at the turn of the century Grossmith’s scored an immediate hit with Shem-el-Nessim, ‘Exquisitely suggestive of Oriental luxury.’
an advertisement for J. Grossmith & Son’s Shem-el-Nessim, ‘The Scent of Araby,’ London, 1910
- The following items currently listed at myfamilysilver.com are of special interest: A gold-mounted porcelain scent flask; a silver horn vinaigrette, Sampson Mordan, London, 1872; a George III silver vinaigrette commemorating Admiral Nelson, Matthew Linwood, Birmingham; a Victorian silver-mounted tiger’s claw vinaigrette, circa 1880; a French silver-mounted scent jar, Tiffany, circa 1910; and an enamelled silver perfumiere
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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