Silver, with gold, enamel and semi-precious stones, Birmingham Hallmarks, made Newcastle upon Tyne by Newcastle Guild of Handicrafts, 1906-7, designer Richard Hatton

Casket with a hinged lid, and case, the hexagonal silver casket is decorated with enamel plaques with subjects from the The Faerie Queen, armorial bearings in enamel, seed pearls, small opals and silver gilt wire and applied motifs. Around the base is an inscription from the The Faerie Queen (VIII.7.58)

The case is hexagonal with a raised lid and is covered in parchment with stylised, coloured, floral decoration. The front of the case is mounted with a silver plaque with repoussé decoration of a crowned lion with national emblems, a rose, shamrock and thistle. Birmingham hallmark for 1906-7 and T.H. Co. There is a silver knob to raise the lid mounted with a green stone.

Label: The enamel plaques illustrate scenes from Edmund Spencer's The Faerie Queene. The casket was designed by the Head of the Newcastle Guild and made by its members, all of whom are identified on the base of the casket which accompanies this object. It was made for presentation to Queen Alexandra on the opening by King Edward VII of the King's Hall of Armstrong College (University of Durham). Lord Armstrong (1810-1900) was a famous industrialist who was a major benefactor of Durham University, the Newcastle School of Arts and Crafts and a sponsor of the Newcastle Guild of Handicrafts.

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)

The enamel plaques illustrate scenes from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590). The casket was designed by the Head of the Newcastle Guild and made by its members. They are all identified on its base. The casket was made for presentation to Queen Alexandra when Edward VII opened the King's Hall of Armstrong College (University of Durham). Lord Armstrong (1810-1900) was a famous industrialist. He was a major benefactor of Durham University and of the Newcastle School of Arts and Crafts. He was also a sponsor of the Newcastle Guild of Handicrafts.

CIRC.376&A-1965