Jewelry Lovers

Jewelry in Britain at the turn of the century differed from the French because it was more backward-looking and still owed much to the Arts and Crafts. The British decorative motifs featured primeval figures and floral tributes combined with interlace patterns of Celtic origin. These pieces were made in finely crafted silver enriched with polished stones and enamels. They took the form of belt or waist buckles, clasps, hatpins and pendants, reminiscent of the trappings of civic functions. Designers included Archibald Knox, Oliver Baker, Jessie King, Kate Fischer and John Paul

Cooper. Many of these were employed by Liberty, a shop established in 1875 which specialized in Oriental goods from the East Indies and Japan. Liberty maintained a strict policy of anonymity regarding the designers it commissioned to make jewelry. However it is possible to identify the work of many of these jewelers since they were also prominent in their own right as members of the Arts and Crafts movement.

A number of guilds were also established in Britain at the turn of the century. These were medieval-style associations of craftsmen concerned to protect their traditional trade practices. The Guild School of Handicraft was set up by architect and jeweler CR Ashbee in 1888, and included designers such as Fred Partridge and May Hart. The Artificers’ Guild was founded three years later by Nelson Dawson. The members of these guilds worked in a number of different media, exploring the properties of horn and shell, cloissone and plique-a-jour enamelling.

Other British jewelry designers of the time included Sybil Dunlop, Arthur and Georgina Gaskin, Henry Wilson, Harold Stabler and Omar Ramsden. Their work drew inspiration from the religious iconography of the Renaissance, from medievalism and Scandinavian folk art.

Probably the most significant contribution to British Art Nouveau was the work produced by the Glasgow School of Art, led by the architect and designer, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. H

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