Christening Mug

Charles Robert Ashbee, 1863-1942

Manufacturer: Guild of Handicraft

1903

Silver with chased decoration in the form of flowering plants

5 1/2 inches

An inscription reads "A.N.B. March 29thy, 1909 from R.M.H." The donor was presumably Rob Martin Holland, one of the directors of the Guild of Handicraft.

Fine Art Society, London

The Fine Art Society, London, has most generously given its permission to use information, images, and text from its catalogues in the Victorian Web. This generosity has led to the creation of hundreds and hundreds of the site's most valuable documents on painting, drawing, sculpture, furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, metalwork, and the people who created them. The copyright on text and images from their catalogues remains, of course, with the Fine Art Society. [GPL]

The Guild of Handicraft was set up by C. R. Ashbee in 1888 in the East End of London an area of poverty and high unemployment. He trained craftsmen to work in the Guild making metalwork, leatherwork, silver, jewellery and furniture mainly to Ashbee's own designs. Early pieces were rough and amateurish but construction and finishes were soon refined. In 1898 the Guild made furniture for the Darmstadt Palace of the Grand Duke of Hesse to designs by H. M. Baillie Scott. The workshops moved to the Cotswolds in 1901 but could not survive commercial pressures and fierce competition and closed in 1907.

References

Spring '99. 1999. 89 plates. London: The Fine Art Society, 1999. No. 7.

---

Victorian
Web

Visual
Arts

Decorative
Arts

Metalwork

C. R.
Ashbee

Last modified 6 November 2004