Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The Home Beautiful: The Ashbee Silver Pin Tray, 1896


The Victoria & Albert Museum


Charles Robert Ashbee and his Guild of Handicraft, in the 1890s, started to design and produce silver tableware, notably bowls, dishes and decanters. Ashbee preferred simple elements and produced a line of hammered silver with fine, elegant embossed detail, adopting the aesthetic principles of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and focusing on items for use in daily life. Ashbee and his Guild took pride in hand-crafting their pieces as a reaction against the what they considered the overwrought wares produced by machines. Place of Origin

This pin tray by Ashbee comes from Essex House, England and was made between 1896 and 1897. The piece reflects Ashbee’s love of simple adornment and the influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement.

Ashbee and the Guild continued to produce pieces like this as the Nineteenth Century came to a close. In 1899, the Guild opened a shop on Bond Street in London and, in 1901, were granted a Royal Warrant as jewelers and silversmiths to the newly ascended Queen Alexandra.

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