Charlotte Metcalf is the Editor of Great British Brands and the co-presenter of Break Out Culture, a weekly podcast with former Minister of Culture, Lord Vaizey. She is also a film-maker, author and journalist. She reports regularly for Thomas Lyte on cultural events, exhibitions, fairs and publications that are of interest to the communities of craftsmen we represent and celebrate, with a particular focus on goldsmiths and silversmiths.
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Compton Verney in Warwickshire is one of the most beautiful parks in Britain. Famous for its Cedars of Lebanon, the restored Grade I Georgian mansion is set on an ornamental lake in 120 acres of parkland designed by Capability Brown. The house itself has been through many iterations – at one time there were ambitious plans for it to be a hotel with an opera house in the grounds. Today, after a £45 million restoration project and the creation of a modern wing, it is a major art gallery, housing six permanent collections, including its highly praised British Folk Art Collection.
The gallery has a well-deserved reputation for mounting fascinating exhibitions, and from 21st October a major exhibition of materials and makers is opening in collaboration with Woburn Abbey and the Crafts Council. With exhibits dating back as far as 2000 BC, this promises to be a veritable treasure-trove of historic and contemporary craft, many on display for the first time ever, and complete with all the stories of the makers behind them.
Works will include ancient Compton Verney’s Chinese ceramics, Woburn Abbey’s restored Mortlake Tapestries, some extraordinary 18th century bed textiles from Gujarat in India, examples of the Sèvres dinner service given to the Duke and Duchess of Bedford by Louis XV of France and contemporary painted silks and ceramics. Each of the six galleries is focusing on a different material group – textile, organic, metal, stone, clay and wood. Historic objects are displayed alongside modern and contemporary pieces from the Crafts Council to explore changing methods of making and also how attitudes toward certain materials, like coral and ivory, have changed over several centuries.
The exhibition is co-curated by Oli McCall and Hannah Obee. Hannah, previously Director of Collections at Harwood House, took the lead on clay, metal and wood. Of course, silver and goldsmiths will be drawn to the metal gallery where the star exhibit is perhaps the 1837 silver-gilt Landseer Dish from Woburn Abbey. Designed by Queen Victoria’s favourite artist, Edwin Landseer, and modelled by Edward Cotterill, the dish reflects how the idea of value evolves. You can see an example of a goblet awarded for sheepshearing in 1808, valued at five guineas, which was melted down to make the dish. This recycling of a plain but silver agricultural prize into a more desirable object was not unusual and shows how fashion and artistry were paramount.
Also interesting is an intricately wrought 1737 silver breadbasket by George I’s Goldsmith, Paul de Lamerie, who was a second-generation Huguenot. It’s a masterpiece of silversmithing combining casting, piercing, engraving and chasing, traditional techniques. Some of the artisan skills, like casting and specialist engraving, are rare if not endangered today.
There are some extraordinary silver gilt sculptures made for King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and Charles XII of Sweden in the early 1630’s. They epitomise luxurious consumption and are reported to have been used as salt cellars at the coronation of King Louis XVI of France, and were brought to England during the French Revolution. Valuable in their own right as examples of fine craftsmanship, this provenance makes them even more highly prized.
Equally fascinating is the silver gilt Composite Toilet Service made between 1680 and 1715 by an unknown maker, possibly Dutch. These toilet services were highly prized status symbols, emphasising the owner’s wealth and sophistication, used by royalty and the aristocracy while their attendants dressed them in front of visitors.
These are just a few of the precious historic metal objects on display. All are juxtaposed with contemporary silverware that highlights our changing attitudes towards craft skills and materials. For example, there’s the contemporary silver ‘Big Beautiful Vase II’ made by Lucian Taylor as part of his ‘Superabundant’ series, which he began in 2004, which explores the idea of luxury, excess and abundance, a theme that continues to resonate today as our society grapples with a growing awareness of the impacts of endless consumption on people and planet. Or have a look at ‘Pinch’, a vessel in gilded oxidised copper by Francisca Onumah. Highlighting the making process, she has left exposed the marks that silversmiths would normally polish away. She sees beauty in such ‘defects’, showing a contemporary tendency to value the skills involved in the making above the more traditional way of viewing only highly finished objects as valuable.
At a time when we are realising how many artisan skills we risk losing unless we place those skills centre stage above factory made branded precious metal trinkets, this exhibition will draw anyone interested in craft. There are six areas on display here but for silversmiths, goldsmiths and metal workers, they will not fail to appreciate the exploration of their constant creative battle for their techniques to be better understood and valued.
“History in the Making: Stories of materials and makers, 2000BC to now” runs from Sat 21 October 2023 – Sun 11 February 2024, visit www.comptonverney.org.uk for more details.
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All images used in this article were provided courtesy of Compton Verney.
Read about our press mentions and awards for the project
We have selected a number of case studies that demonstrate the broad range of our capabilities designing and making in precious metals.
