H. Blairman & Sons Ltd

Designed by William Burges (1827-81)

Manufactured by Barkentin & Krall (partnership fl. 1883–1932/35)

Silver, enamel and maplewood

9 x 12 (at top) x 8 (at base) cm

English (London), 1868

Presented to E.V. Austin by the Surrey Archaeological Society; […]; Bigwood Auctioneers, 1 April 2016, lot 200; English private collection

Surrey Advertiser & County Times, 14 August 1869, p. 5

The design of the present bowl or ‘cup’ anticipates a series of six silver and enamel drinking cups designed by Burges and manufactured for himself and a close circle of friends, in the 1870s; see, for example, J. Mordaunt Crook, William Burges and the High Victorian Dream, revised and enlarged edition, 2013, fig. 262.  A page of designs for these bowls, dated 1873, is included in an album inscribed ‘Orfevrerie domestique’, in the collection of the RIBA (SD181 f.15).

A closely related silver, enamel and wood covered bowl, dated 1878, is in the collection of the British Museum (1981,0603.1).

Judy Rudoe, in Decorative Arts 1850-1950. A catalogue of the British Museum collection. 2nd ed., 1994, under no. 29, writes: ‘Burges’s eclectic inspiration rarely produced objects as restrained and elegant as this cup, which illustrates his interest in French Gothic art, whether thirteenth-century manuscript illumination, from which the grotesques and diaper ground…’.

The same might be said to apply to the Austin bowl.

Further information on the inscriptions will follow.

Some minor repairs to enamel and cracks to the wooden bowl. The photographs were taken prior to conservation of the enamel.