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A Chinese insect and spider plate

Oct29

A recently repeated episode of the BBC’s Antiques Road Trip (series 20, episode 25, first broadcast on 7 February 2020) featured a glazed Chinese dish, featuring insects such as bees, dragonflies, spiders, beetles and crickets/grasshoppers, as well as a large central wasp spider. It was bought by Natasha Raskin Sharp from an antiques shop in Newark-on-Trent for £50 (haggled down from the ticket price of £69). It caught my eye too: if I’d seen it in an antiques shop, I’d definitely have bought it.

I couldn’t tell from the views shown if it was a transfer decoration that had then been hand-coloured, or if it was entirely hand-painted.

Natasha thought it was likely to date from the 1960s. It had a stamp on the back with Chinese characters.

Glazed Chinese dish / plate with hand-coloured insects and spiders, featured on the Antiques Road Trip.

 

The dish generated a lot of interest at the auction at Willingham Auctions, of Willingham, Cambridgeshire, and sold for £190.

A quick bit of google-fu and I found the dish had sold as Lot 1236 at the Antique and Good Quality Modern and Collectables auction held on 19 October 2019, and that the auction house had described the dish as ‘Entomology interest – Unusual Chinese glazed earthenware plate of canted square form, the hand-finished decoration comprising a large, central female wasp spider in its web surrounded by a variety of other insects, including a locust, hornet, beetles and other arachnids, the base with orange seal mark.’

I’d love to know a bit more about this dish, especially its age and who made it. I wonder if it is older than Natasha thought? The auction house made no mention of its presumed date. It feels late nineteenth century to me, but I know diddly squat about Chinese ceramics. Does anyone out there have any knowledge of this intriguing dish? If so, I’d love to hear.

Rings that remind me of things 24

Feb7

Part 24 of an occasional series about rings in my Etsy shop that remind me of things.

Ring:

1960s trapped carnelian orb ring by Elis Kauppi for Kupittaan Kulta. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photo for details.

Thing:

Joe 90’s BIG RAT machine, from the 1960’s Gerry and Sylvia Anderson tv show, illustration by Andrew Skilleter. Click on photo for details to buy a print.

So far I have had rings that remind me of an Iron Age hillfort, an alien spaceship, a cream horn, a radio telescope, Noah’s Ark, an octopus tentacle, spider eyes, Pluto and its moon Charon, the rings of Saturn, The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh, some lichen, the stepped Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara in Egypt, the Quality Street lady, a herb knife, a sea anemone, an Iron Age miniature votive shield, the Mayan Temple of Kukulkan at Chichén Itzá in Mexico, a screw propeller from SS ‘Great Britain’, a pair of clackers, a morel, a dalek, a chessboard, and Jupiter.

Rings that remind me of things: Part 23

Sep29

Part 23 of an occasional series about rings in my Etsy shop that remind me of things.

Ring:

1972 blue lace agate ring by Peter Guy Watson. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photo for details.

Thing:

Jupiter. Photographed in ultraviolet by the Hubble Space telescope, and rotated by me so it better matches the ring. Playing god, me? From the fabulous NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) series.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Processing & licence: Judy Schmidt.

So far I have had rings that remind me of an Iron Age hillfort, an alien spaceship, a cream horn, a radio telescope, Noah’s Ark, an octopus tentacle, spider eyes, Pluto and its moon Charon, the rings of Saturn, The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh, some lichen, the stepped Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara in Egypt, the Quality Street lady, a herb knife, a sea anemone, an Iron Age miniature votive shield, the Mayan Temple of Kukulkan at Chichén Itzá in Mexico, a screw propeller from SS ‘Great Britain’, a pair of clackers, a morel, a dalek, and a chessboard.

Rings that remind me of things: Part 22

Jun27

Part 22 of an occasional series about rings in my Etsy shop that remind me of things.

Ring:

1960s Finnish chequerboard band in sterling silver. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click photo for details.

Thing:

A chessboard. I was going to put up a photo of the Bridget Riley artwork, Movement in Squares, 1961, tempera on hardboard, but the Wikimedia Commons licence was fair use only, so this will have to do!

So far I have had rings that remind me of an Iron Age hillfort, an alien spaceship, a cream horn, a radio telescope, Noah’s Ark, an octopus tentacle, spider eyes, Pluto and its moon Charon, the rings of Saturn, The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh, some lichen, the stepped Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara in Egypt, the Quality Street lady, a herb knife, a sea anemone, an Iron Age miniature votive shield, the Mayan Temple of Kukulkan at Chichén Itzá in Mexico, a screw propeller from SS ‘Great Britain’, a pair of clackers, a morel, and a dalek.

Diamonds International Awards

May14

I recently bought four sterling silver pendants by Eric Norris Smith (1949—2019), about whom I knew nothing. In the course of researching Eric’s life and work, I found out that while a student at Glasgow School of Art, he had been awarded ‘the De Beers Diamond International Award’, and was one of its youngest-ever recipients.

I wanted to learn a bit more about these Awards, and a quick bit of google-fu told me that they were known more properly as the Diamonds-International Awards, and that they were first awarded in 1954.

This fab video on Youtube about the 1969 Diamonds-International Awards

says that there were six award-winning designers from the UK that year, but frustratingly doesn’t name them, so it seems quite a few were given out each year. But try as I could, there doesn’t seem to be an overall list of winners of the award anywhere. I’ve read that the Awards first started in 1954, and that Andrew Grima won 13 of the awards, more than any other designer.

A bit more poking about and here’s another Youtube video, this one of the 1967 Diamonds-International Awards

and another of the same 1967 awards, with more jewels but no sound:

Yet more googling and someone is selling the 1967 Diamonds-International exhibition brochure on eBay. From the photos I can see that the exhibition toured around the world, travelling from New York to London to Milan and finally to Frankfurt. And paydirt! The eBay listing showed a page giving the winners (who seem to be a mixture of designers and manufacturers): 25 in total. It also illustrates 18 of the pieces in the exhibition (with two designers, David H Clifton and Ute Crecelius having two pieces featured – I’m not sure if they got two awards or just one) and tells who the designers were of these – if you want to know all 25 designers, you need to buy the brochure …

Yet more poking about in the internet and I learned that Eric Norris won his award in 1970, and was one of 30 winners that year. Sadly no films or even photos of what his award-winning design was, but I’ll keep looking.

In the meantime, here are the details of the 1967 Diamonds-International Awards and its accompanying Exhibition:

The Exhibition was at New York (the Institute of International Education, 809 United Nations Plaza, 27-29 September 1967), followed by London (Goldsmiths’ Hall, Foster Lane, 10-12 October), then at Milan (Jolly Hotel President, Largo Augusto 10, 20-21 October), and finally at Frankfurt (Hessicher Hof Hotel, Freidrich-Ebert-Anlag 40, 9-10 November).

The listed winners were:

  1.    Neil Carrick Aird, Lenzie, Scotland  (designed by Mr Aird, manufactured by Laings Ltd)
  2.    Glenda Arentzen, New York, NY, USA  (designed and manufactured by Miss Arentzen)
  3.    Asprey & Co Ltd, London, England  (designed and manufactured by Robert Stewart Johnston)
  4.    Jocelyn Burton, London, England  (designed by Miss Burton, manufactured by Bernard Kidd)
  5.    FJ Campion Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia  (designed by Susan Perry and August Scherlish, manufactured by Prouds Pty Ltd)
  6.    David H Clifton, Balsall Common, England  (designed by Mr Clifton, manufactured by Andrew Grima Ltd) 2 pieces featured – a ring and a brooch
  7.    Ute Crecelius, Lüdenscheid, West Germany  (designed by Miss Crecelius, manufactured by Dieter Pieper Goldschmiede) 2 pieces featured – a brooch and a hair comb
  8.    Benetti Diego, Bolzano, Italy  (designed and manufactured by Mr Diego)
  9.    Henry Dunay, New York, NY, USA  (designed by Mr Dunay, manufactured by Henry Dunay, Inc)
  10.    Eton Jewellery Co Ltd, London, England  (designed by Robert Thomas, manufactured by Eton Jewellery Co Ltd)
  11.    Graham John Fuller, Worthing, England
  12.    Rudolph T Gloor, Manila, Philippines
  13.    Manfred Gruhlke, Berlin, West Germany
  14.    Ingo Haas, Balingen, West Germany
  15.    Josef Hoerner, Schwäbisch Gmünd, West Germany
  16.    Dorothy Hogg, Troon, Scotland
  17.    John E Holtzclaw, Alva, OK, USA  (designed and manufactured by Mr Holtzclaw)
  18.    Matti Hyvärinen, Turku, Finland  (designed by Mr Hyvärinen, manufactured by Sirokoru)
  19.    Augustin Julia-Plana, Bern, Switzerland  (designed by Mr Julia-Plana, manufactured by Simon Schlegel)
  20.    Jürgen Maehse, Berlin, West Germany  (designed and manufactured by Maehse)
  21.    Mem Guld & Silver A/B, Lidköping, Sweden  (designed by Theresia Hvorslev, manufactured by Mem Guld & Silver A/B)
  22.    Hans-Leo Peters, Düsseldorf-Oberkassel, West Germany   (designed and manufactured by Mr Peters)
  23.    Yuko Shindo, Tokyo, Japan
  24.    Steele & Dolphin Ltd, Birmingham, England
  25.    Terence John Waldron, Henley-in-Arden, England

That’s 9 winners from the UK, 6 from West Germany, 3 from the USA, and one each from Australia, Finland, Italy, Japan, the Philippines, Sweden and Switzerland. I’m surprised how few were from Scandinavian/Nordic countries (just two!) as during this period they were at the forefront of modernist jewellery design. Maybe they didn’t use diamonds too much.

Eric Norris Smith, jeweller

May12

I recently bought four pendants with a maker’s mark I didn’t know: ens, three with a 1977 Edinburgh hallmark and one with a 1978 one. I really like the pendants – the three modernist ones reminded me a bit of the work one of my favourite jewellers, Jack Spencer – and I wanted to know a bit more about their maker. I found out that ‘ens’ was the maker’s mark of Eric Norris Smith.

Pendants by Eric Norris Smith, dated 1977 and 1978. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery. Click on photo for details. (NOW ALL SOLD).

My first bout of googling told me that Eric was an award-winning Scottish jeweller – both designing and manufacturing – and was most well-known for his diamond jewellery, and he created pieces for the Queen and Princess Anne. It also brought the sad news that Eric had died, just couple of months previously, on 3 April 2019, aged 69. He had been retired for less than a year.

Pendant by Eric Norris Smith, with a 1977 Edinburgh hallmark. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery. Click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

Eric was born on 1 June 1949, in Ralston, Paisley, Scotland. He studied at Glasgow School of Art, specialising in jewellery, and in 1970 while he was still a student there he won a prestigious De Beers Diamonds-International Award, one of 30 given out worldwide that year, and in the process becoming one of the youngest-ever winners. I’ve written a separate blog post about these awards, complete with some fascinating late ’60s videos, which I’ll be posting soon. After graduating, Eric was clearly marked as a rising star as he was offered a place at the Royal College of Art, but turned it down to gain practical experience in the workshop of Hamilton & Inches in Edinburgh.

Pendant by Eric Norris Smith, with a 1977 Edinburgh hallmark. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery. Click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

In 1973 Eric decided to work for himself, establishing his first workshop in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire. Eric began his career ‘producing very modern Scottish silver pieces’, in his words. This workshop soon proved too small and he moved to larger premises in nearby Bothwell. From here Eric designed and manufactured diamond jewellery, which he sold to over 120 retail outlets across the UK, as well as continuing to make less expensive sterling silver jewellery such as my pendants. The third move came in 1979 when he set up his eponymous company, Eric N. Smith Ltd, and moved to yet-larger premises in Newton Mearns, Glasgow. Eric’s company soon gained a reputation for high-end diamond jewellery and bespoke pieces, especially engagement rings, and he started specialising in selling luxury jewellery brands as well as his own diamond pieces. In 2005 he launched the ‘Morse’ line of jewellery with messages spelled out in Morse code, made up of diamonds of course. Ex-President Bill Clinton was a customer.  However, I am here for the silver jewellery!

Scottish saltire and Celtic trinity knot pendant by Eric Norris Smith, hallmarked in Edinburgh in 1978. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery. Click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

Pendant by Eric Norris Smith, with a 1977 Edinburgh hallmark. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery. Click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

As well as winning a Diamonds-International Award, Eric was twice named UK Designer of the Year at the UK Jewellery Awards. Another notable achievement of Eric’s was that he was responsible for the reintroduction of the Glasgow hallmark in 2013, exactly 50 years after it was last struck in 1963. Between 1963 and 2013 all Scottish hallmarking was undertaken in Edinburgh.

Eric’s obituary was featured in The Times of 29 April 2019. It is behind a paywall and a subscription is required to read the whole piece.

Hannu Ikonen reindeer moss jewellery

May3

Every now and then I come across a jewellery designer who is pretty much ‘invisible’ online (I don’t have a fabulous library of books on jewellery, sadly, so google is my source). This was the case with Finnish designer Liisa Vitali (about whom I was at least able to cobble together a post of sorts), and is in fact much more so the case with her compatriot Hannu Ikonen. I have no doubt this is due in part to the majority of sources being in Finnish, but information about him is nigh-on absent online. I have come across the same small paragraph about him, endlessly repeated on different websites selling his pieces, but with no biographical details or detailed information about his jewellery designs.

Turning to google books, all I could find was a publication from 1982, titled Welcome to Finland / Soyez Les Bienvenus en Finlande / Willkommen in Finland by Anders Nyborg and published by the University of Michigan. And even then, I was only able to see a snippet: as the texts in the three languages were side by side I was able to glean that Ikonen was then considered a rising star, and had worked in wood and precious metals for ten years (ie since the early 1970s), and that he was self-taught. I have googled vainly to try to find out more about him, even simple things like his date and place of birth, where he worked and so on, but with no joy. I do not know if he is still alive. I do hope so. I am guessing that perhaps he is/was a sculptor if he worked in wood as well as metals, and this would explain the fabulously sculptural qualities of his ‘reindeer moss’ series of jewellery.

Sterling silver reindeer moss bracelet by Hannu Ikonen, with a 1977 hallmark. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photos for details.

I recently acquired my first piece of Hannu Ikonen’s jewellery in the reindeer moss series. This series is usually found in bronze, with sterling silver pieces coming up for sale more rarely. Ikonen designed for Valo-Koru, a Finnish jewellery firm that operated in Turku from 1969 onwards.

Reindeer moss is a misnomer, as it is a lichen of the genus Cladonia (cup lichen) rather than a moss. The lichens in this genus are the main food of reindeer (Rangifer tarandus, known as caribou in North America).

Cladonia fimbriata. Photo by Mareike Hummert on Wikimedia Commons.

Cladonia fimbriata. Photo by James Lindsey on Wikimedia Commons.

In making the reindeer moss series, Hannu Ikonen joined an illustrious group of Finnish designers inspired by nature and the natural beauty around them. Search on Google images for ‘Hannu Ikonen reindeer moss’ to see the glorious range of his designs.

Rings that remind me of things: Part 21

Jan12

Part 21 of an occasional series about rings in my Etsy shop that remind me of things.

Ring:

Sterling silver wide band with bosses. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photo for details.

Thing:

A dalek. Made of straw bales. I mean, just look at it! Photo taken in 2013 by Oliver Mills, at geograph.org.uk, via Wikimedia Commons. The sculpture was at Park Farm near the A51 at Nantwich in Cheshire. The farm makes ice cream, and for 20 years has also been making giant straw sculptures and raising money for charities. Hurrah for them!

So far I have had rings that remind me of an Iron Age hillfort, an alien spaceship, a cream horn, a radio telescope, Noah’s Ark, an octopus tentacle, spider eyes, Pluto and its moon Charon, the rings of Saturn, The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh, some lichen, the stepped Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara in Egypt, the Quality Street lady, a herb knife, a sea anemone, an Iron Age miniature votive shield, the Mayan Temple of Kukulkan at Chichén Itzá in Mexico, a screw propeller from SS ‘Great Britain’, a pair of clackers, and a morel.

Rings that remind me of things: Part 20

Sep19

Part 20 of an occasional series about rings in my Etsy shop that remind me of things.

Ring:

1969 Erik Granit modernist ring in sterling silver. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details.

Thing:

Morel (Morchella ulmaria). Photo by Walt Sturgeon (Mycowalt) at Mushroom Observer, via Wikimedia Commons.

So far I have had rings that remind me of an Iron Age hillfort, an alien spaceship, a cream horn, a radio telescope, Noah’s Ark, an octopus tentacle, spider eyes, Pluto and its moon Charon, the rings of Saturn, The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh, some lichen, the stepped Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara in Egypt, the Quality Street lady, a herb knife, a sea anemone, an Iron Age miniature votive shield, the Mayan Temple of Kukulkan at Chichén Itzá in Mexico, a screw propeller from SS ‘Great Britain’, and a pair of clackers.

A William Morris alphabet

Jul28

I have some tiny brooches for sale in my Etsy shop – all in sterling silver letter in a lovely ornate script, decorated with leaves and curling tendrils, and one with extra enamelled decoration.

Tiny William Morris letter ‘F’ brooch. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photo for details.

Tiny letter ‘G’ brooch, in a William Morris style, by Ortak/Malcolm Gray. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on link for details.

William Morris letter ‘C’ brooch, enamelled, made by Ortak/Malcolm Gray. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photo for details.

A few years ago I sold a letter ‘C’ in the plain silver series: an alphabet of brooches in a William Morris design, made by Ortak, the Orkney firm of jewellers founded by Malcolm Gray and based in Kirkwall on Mainland, the largest Orkney island off the north cast of Scotland. I have since sold letters ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘E’, ‘J’, ‘L’, ‘M’, ‘P’ and ‘R’ in this series, and have seen others (‘A’ and ‘H’):

Ortak silver letter 'A'. Photo by CAtaway on flickr.

Ortak silver letter ‘A’ brooch. Photo by CAtaway on flickr.

Tiny William Morris letter ‘B’ brooch in sterling silver by Ortak / Malcolm Gray. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage tiny William Morris design sterling silver brooch forming a letter 'C', and made by Ortak in the 1970s.

Vintage tiny William Morris design sterling silver brooch forming a letter ‘C’, and made by Ortak in the 1970s. Sold in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery. Click for details. (NOW SOLD).

Tiny letter ‘E’ brooch in sterling silver, design by William Morris. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

Tiny William Morris letter ‘E’ brooch in sterling silver by Ortak / Malcolm Gray. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

William Morris letter ‘H’ brooch, made by Ortak/Malcolm Gray. Photo by her.dream

William Morris silver letter ‘J’ brooch (I thought it might be a J or an L, but have since seen the L, so now know this must be a J), made by Ortak/Malcolm Gray. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

Tiny William Morris style letter L brooch, by Malcomlm Gray/Ortak. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

William Morris silver letter ‘M’ brooch, made by Ortak/Malcolm Gray. Sold in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

William Morris letter ‘P’ tiny brooch, for sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery. Click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

William Morris silver letter ‘R’ brooch, made by Ortak/Malcolm Gray. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

This series was also available in gold: I have only ever seen one, a letter ‘M’:

9 carat gold William Morris letter ‘M’ brooch, hallmarked in Edinburgh in 1990. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

I also had another in the enamelled series:

Small enamelled letter M brooch in a William Morris style, by the Scottish firm of Ortak. The brooch is available to buy in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

From my internet truffling, it seems that these letters are most similar to those used by William Morris in his Kelmscott Press edition of Chaucer’s collected works. You can see the letters here (alphabet starts on page 33 of 56).

Morris is one of the founders of the Arts and Crafts movement, and a designer of beautiful textiles, tiles, stained glass, furniture, book design and calligraphy—you name it, he probably designed it.

Morris’s skill at calligraphy is well known, and his illuminated manuscripts and book illustrations are gorgeous and wonderful. Here are some letters designed by Morris that might also have been part of the inspiration for the brooch series above:

Letters designed by William Morris.

Letters designed by William Morris.