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. 
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
