Cotswold Auction Company unearth a museum quality Arts and Crafts casket in Cheltenham
Published July 31st, 2008
“The man who buys the stock plate is buying useful articles but not unique ones, whereas he who commissions an original work upon which the craftsman has bestowed his best personal labour is buying a work of art, the money value of which increases with an increase of reputation that may come to the artist”. (Gilbert Leigh Marks speaking in an interview with The London Art Journal in 1898).
Gilbert Leigh Marks (1861-1905) is considered by many to have been the most talented English art metalworker of his generation. In a career tragically cut short by ill-health he is thought to have produced between 700 and 800 pieces, the majority of which were in silver. Marks’s work is instantly recognisable, not least because of his choice of decoration chiefly chased flowers, fruit and foliage and its remarkably tactile, soft, fluid finishes. As one contemporary observer wrote in The Art Journal, ‘The colour, too, of these bowls and vases and beakers – the dull yet exquisite grey of unpolished silver – is exceedingly pleasant to the cultivated eye.’
Born into a middle-class family in Croydon, near London, Marks boasted several relatives who were painters. One of his paternal uncles was the artist Henry Stacey Marks R.A. (1829-1898), and his mother’s brother was the painter and illustrator, Frederick Walker A.R.A. (1840-1875). Upon leaving school in 1878, Gilbert Marks joined a firm of manufacturing silversmiths (thought to have been Holland, Aldwinckle & Slater of Jewin Crescent, City of London) with whom he spent seven years before leaving to work for Masurel & Fils, wool brokers. In the meantime, however, his leisure hours were devoted to the perfection of his craft as a silversmith. In 1895 he held his first exhibition at the retail goldsmiths and jewellers, Johnson, Walker & Tolhurst at 80 Aldersgate Street, City. The firm continued to sponsor Gilbert Marks in a successful series of annual exhibitions, the last of which was in 1901.
The Cotswold Auction Company are delighted to have had entered for our Decorative Arts sale on 27th August 2008 an extremely rare museum quality signed Arts and Crafts Copper Casket, decorated with stylized trees and set with a simulated moonstone to the lid, signed “Gilbert Marks 1898″.
“The Arts and Crafts Casket by Marks is incredibly rare and is expected to attract international bidding during our live Internet sale via the ATG platform in August” stated The Cotswold Auction Company’s Saleroom and Internet Business Manager, Stephen Sheppard. “This is truly a magnificent discovery for the Cheltenham saleroom and this signed 19th Century Gilbert Leigh Marks Casket, rivals any comparable item in major collections or museums around the world”.
For further information telephone 01242 256363
or email chelt@cotswoldauction.co.uk
