Barkentin & Krall

History of the Firm

Barkentin & Krall was a silversmith and art metalworking business, active from about 1868-1930. The silversmith Jes Barkentin (c.1815-83) was born in Denmark, and was joined in 1868 by Carl Cristof Krall, a craftsman of Czeckoslovakian origin, who had been born in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1844. When Barkentin died, he kept the name and either conducted the business by himself, or was joined by another member of the Barkentin family. The firm worked for such important architects and designers as William Burges and G. F. Bodley, and was mentioned in a letter of 10 January 1872 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. At that point it had premises at 289 and 291 Regent Street in central London, and continued working for some of the major designers and projects of the later Victorian period and early twentieth century (later, they were at 37 and 38 Margaret Street, near Oxford Circus). The designer Walter Stoye (1886-1974), who had taught metal and enamel work at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, the Brighton School of Art and the Camberwell School of Art, worked for the firm from about 1912-1935. Having married Carl Krall's daughter, he took over as Managing Director after World War I until the firm closed in 1935.

Works

Bibliography

"Barkentin and Krall Ltd." Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951 (University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011). Web. 10 October 2018.

Clifford, Helen M. A Treasured Inheritance: 600 Years of Oxford College Silver. Oxford: The Ashmolean, 2004. See pp. 50-51.

"Jug" (by Walter Stoye, with information about him). V&A Collections. Web. 10 October 2018.

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. Correspondence: The Chelsea Years, 1863-1872. Vol. 5: The Prelude to Crisis, 1871-72. Ed. William Fredeman (completed by Roger C. Lewis et al.). Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2005.

Created 10 October 2018