Antiques

RESEARCH PAYS OFF Richard Bromell, ASFAV, Charterhouse Auctioneers

Every so often, when I am out and about visiting and advising clients, I see something which gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. This feeling does not always mean something is going to be of great international importance on the auction market or of vast value, rather that it is interesting and warrants research.

In our world, ‘interesting’ has two meanings. The first meaning, and the one used the most, is usually the response from a valuer to a client when the item is far from interesting and we are being polite. The second being it is actually quite interesting to us!

Recently I looked at a small silver spoon, which I found interesting, that is in the second sense of the word. The market for silver remains strong, as does jewellery and watches. Much of the silver we view, and auction, is cutlery, tea sets, serving dishes and candlesticks. Most are made to traditional designs. With cutlery, Old English, Fiddle, Kings or Queens’s pattern are perennial favourites. They have the added benefit of finding very similar pieces to add into the set or to replace missing items straightforward and easy to source.

However, these pieces are mass-produced and are about in large numbers, unlike the silver spoon which I found interesting. The spoon jumped right out at me when the owner brought it, and various other items, into our reception on a silver valuation day. The design is not one I have seen before, although it does have a slight Georg Jensen (yes, no ‘e’ on Georg as he’s Danish!) look to it. What really stood out was the wonderful organic form to the spoon.

As a caddy spoon, it has only one job to do in life, and that is to take tea out of a canister and put it into a teapot. Although people make up cutlery sets, there is a huge collecting fraternity just for caddy spoons and in reality, for every several hundred pieces of cutlery you see, you might see just one caddy spoon.

The spoon, which measures 11.5cm (quite large for a caddy spoon, I guess the designer liked strong tea!)

Silver caddy spoon valued at £200-£400

is made in the Arts & Crafts taste. This period of design was hugely popular in America, and across Europe, from about 1880 to 1920. The spoon, with its hallmarks, dates to 1922, so very much at the end of the Arts & Crafts movement and at the opposite end of the spectrum to the Art Deco movement with its angular designs which was well under way by this point.

Bearing hallmarks for Chester 1922, I had to spend some time identifying who the maker was. This is always the fun part of research. As an auctioneer,

valuer and cataloguer, I learn something new every day. On this day, it was learning that the initials AES stamped on the spoon meant that Amy Eleanor Stewart made this spoon.

Amy Eleanor Boal (1873-1942) married Tom Stewart, a science teacher, at a church in Leeds in 1909 and they are recorded as living at 28 The Crescent, Northwich, near Chester by 1911.

Rarely does work by a lady silversmith appear on the market, as the vast majority of silversmiths were men. This combined with great design (I am personally biased to the Arts & Crafts Movement…) results in this silver caddy spoon being valued at £200-£400 when it goes under the hammer in our two-day auction of silver, jewellery, watches, antiques and interiors on the 7th August.

Probably outside what Mrs B will allow me to spend, but there again, I do have a birthday in August…