Silver and ivory, no marks, London, designed and made by Sir George Frampton.

Embossed and chased with an ivory rim on the casket on which the lid rests when closed.

Given by The Countess of Roberts

Acquisition RF: 52 / 3718
Gift - The Countess Roberts, The Camp, Ascot, Berks
Chased decoration: in an oval surround on the back, the dates 1899 and 1901, the arms of Earl Roberts on the lid and the Merchant Taylor's Company on the front. George Frampton studied architecture and later sculpture at the Royal Academy Schools. He designed a number of important silver presentation pieces. He was made joint principal with W R Lethaby of the Central School of Arts and Crafts in 1896 and was President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, 1911-12.

EDWARDIAN SILVER

Despite relentless commercial pressures and a conservative public which favoured historicist revivals, innovations did emerge in European silverware in the early years of the 20th century, prior to the First World War. The cup and cover (1909-10) by Child & Child of Thurloe Place, South Kensington, in a revived, German Renaissance manner illustrates the prevailing mainstream taste for historicism while the Painter and Stainers’ Cup designed by C.R. Ashbee for Harris Heal (1900-01) is a very contemporary and subtle restatement of a 17th century design and epitomises the essence of the British Arts and Crafts movement.

By 1900, Ashbee and his Guild of Handicraft had a achieved a stylistic maturity. For a while the Guild even showed a modest profit but events were moving swiftly. In the 1890s the work produced by the Guild struck a fresh and original note. By the 1900s, Ashbee was to witness others adapting his ideas and extending them further. The workshops of Henry Wilson, Nelson Dawson and Edward Spencer of the Artificer’s Guild, Omar Ramsden and in Denmark, Michelsen and Georg Jensen began to produce work that was richer and more self assured than the austere, products of the Guild of Handicraft. These firms successfully popularised the Arts and Crafts philosophy and occasionally incorporated Art Nouveau tendencies. The retailer A.L. Liberty of Regent Street with his Cymric range of silver and jewellery was the amongst the most successful and all remained commercially viable long after the demise of the Guild in 1908.

(Graphic panel: the Silver Galleries)

This luxurious casket combines silver with embossed and chased decoration and ivory. Sir George Frampton (1860-1928) designed and produced it as a presentation piece in 1901, and the Merchant Taylors’ Company presented it to Field Marshall Earl Roberts.

Frampton initially studied architecture, stone- and woodcarving and later sculpture at the Royal Academy schools in London between 1881 and 1887. In 1887 he was awarded a gold medal and a travelling scholarship. In 1888 he worked in Paris. On his return he became interested in the applied arts, took up metalwork and produced a number of important presentation pieces, among them this casket.

He was made an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1894 and a Royal Academician in 1902. In 1896, he was made Joint Principal with W.R. Lethaby of the London County Council Central School of Arts and Crafts. Frampton was knighted in 1908.

CIRC.388-1953