british art: recent acquisitions and discoveries at the art institute || omar ramsden and alwyn...

The Art Institute of Chicago

Omar Ramsden and Alwyn Carr: An Arts and Crafts CollaborationAuthor(s): Ghenete ZellekeSource: Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, Vol. 18, No. 2, British Art: RecentAcquisitions and Discoveries at the Art Institute (1992), pp. 168-182+191Published by: The Art Institute of ChicagoStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4101561 .

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Omar Ramsden and Alwyn Carr: An Arts and Crafts Collaboration

GHENETE ZELLEKE

Associate Curator of European Decorative Arts

The Art Institute of Chicago

n January I991, The Art Institute of Chicago acquired a sumptuous example of early twentieth-century English silver: a bowl made in 1908 by the silversmiths Omar Ramsden and Alwyn Charles Ellison Carr

(fig. I).1 This intricately worked masterpiece features a green glass bowl attributed to James Powell and Sons of Whitefriars Glass Works (I834-1I980) that is cradled by a network of conjoined, S-shaped silver straps linked

together to form a basketlike support. Below, the silver stem is hammered from the reverse and finely finished on the front, showing two determined, garnet-eyed carp diving through water in pursuit of a stone that, in falling, has created a series of ripples that echo around the stem. A repousse (that is, hammered) border of stylized hearts or lily pads alternate with translucent foil-backed green enamel reserves around the domed foot. Borders of twisted wire serve to reinforce the upper edge of the basket, the rim of the foot, and each of the green enameled hearts. The piece is inscribed on the underside of the foot, "OMAR RAMSDEN ET ALWYN CARR ME FECERUNT" (Omar Ramsden and Alwyn Carr made me).

The addition of this piece of hand-wrought silver to the collection of the Art Institute serves to focus attention both on the prosperous partnership of these two Sheffield-born silversmiths and on the broader theoretical and stylistic contexts in which the bowl was made. This essay will discuss the context in which Ramsden and Carr trained and some of the stylistic influences evident in their work in the period between the beginning of this

century and the outbreak of the First World War. Their success in these first

years of the twentieth century-as well as the success of Ramsden's solo career following the breakup of the partnership in 1918-can be traced in the extensive press coverage given to their work in contemporary periodicals such as The Studio. Ramsden and Carr worked not only to satisfy the domestic table-silver market, but also the profusion of commissions they received for ecclesiastical, civic, and regimental bodies, as well as college and

university silver. While many of the special commissioned pieces-based on traditional English silver forms-represent a more conservative side to Ramsden and Carr's work, it is equally apparent that they absorbed and

freely adapted decorative elements and motifs from contemporary styles.

FIGURE I. Omar Ramsden (British, 1873-

I939) and Alwyn Carr (British, 1872-1940).

Bowl, 1908. Glass (attributed to James Powell and Sons, Whitefriars Glass Works, London), silver, enamel, garnet and tur-

quoise; h. 21.6 cm. The Art Institute of

Chicago, Richard T. Crane, Jr., Endowment

(1991.3). The intended function of this bowl has generated much discussion. In the past, it has been suggested that this is a fish bowl, but that is unlikely because the green-tinted glass would have obscured the colors of the

fish, making them less attractive. It has also been suggested that it is a standing salt or caviar bowl, but that is questionable because of the overall scale of the piece and, in particular, the size of the bowl. A more

likely possibility is that, because it is a deep bowl that narrows at the top, it was

designed to hold flowers.

169



.



FIGURE 2. Charles Robert Ashbee (British, 1863-1942). Coffee Pot, 900oo. Manufactured

by the Guild of Handicraft, London. Silver, ivory, and chrysoprase; 15.7 x 17.9 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of The

Antiquarian Society through the Eloise W. Martin Fund in honor of Edith Bruce

(1987.354). In contrast to the density of the

repousse and chased surfaces on the Art Institute's bowl by Ramsden and Carr

(figs. i and 6), Ashbee's work is character- ized by an austerity of design. The subtle articulation of the surfaces on this coffee

pot is achieved through hammer marks that create an evenly faceted surface. Relief ornament is confined to the foot of the

pot and the rim of the lid.

The silver pieces such as the Art Institute's carp-decorated bowl exhibit this progressive or contemporary side of Ramsden and Carr's work, by far the most aesthetically fascinating aspect of their art. Art Nouveau, Gothic and Celtic Revival styles, and C. R. Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft, as well as non-Western traditions such as Japanese art, were as influential on Ramsden and Carr as the historical or antiquarian traditions of English silver work. In designing silver exclusively for hand, as opposed to machine,

production, Ramsden and Carr continued the ideals embodied in the Arts and Crafts Movement.

The Arts and Crafts Movement

In an address to the Royal Society of Arts in 1928, Omar Ramsden spoke of the moment in which the decline of art, so evident in the first half of the nineteenth century, was reversed:

The real dawn of a new day, a day whose sun is not yet at its zenith, took place in the world of Fine Art-in that wonderful band of painters we call the pre-Raphaelites,

170 ZELLEKE



with its off-shoot, the sturdy effort of William Morris, whose ideas, leading to the arts and crafts movement, have profoundly affected the present-day world of applied art.2

This movement was as much concerned with social as artistic values, and, as Ramsden noted, had grown out of a profound unease with the impact and implications of industrialization in Britain. From the middle of the nineteenth century, British architects and designers questioned the quality and function of art and craft in public and private life. The Arts and Crafts Movement, fueled by the writings and work of John Ruskin and William Morris, saw handwork as personally ennobling and sought to elevate stan- dards of design by promoting handcrafted goods in preference to machine- manufactured products. The medieval craftsman was glorified by Ruskin, who perceived his creative and contented hand in the Gothic architecture of Venice. Morris was equally romantic in his vision of the medieval craftsman, writing that "his relation to art was personal and not mechanical.... He was not hampered by having to produce a cheap makeshift for a market of which he knew nothing: the price of wares was kept down not by using a machine instead of thoughtful handiwork, but by simplicity, or roughness or work suitable to the use of the thing made."3 The qualities of pride and contentment in one's work were missing in contemporary working life because of the repetitive nature of work and the fragmented tasks in an increasingly industrialized work environment.

One of the seminal figures involved in translating the ideals of Ruskin and Morris into practical terms was the architect, designer, and silversmith Charles Robert Ashbee (1863-1942). In 1888, he established the Guild and School of Handicraft in the East End of London as a cooperative, guildlike workshop to make furniture, metalwork, and jewelry as an alternative to that produced by industry.4 Certain qualities of the Guild of Handicraft's designs-simplified forms, hand-worked surfaces, the restrained use of ornament, and the use of wirework and semiprecious stones--influenced period silversmiths and can be found in the work of Ramsden and Carr.

Two examples of silver in the Art Institute's collection illustrate the Guild of Handicraft's output. The first, a coffee pot of 1900 (fig. 2), has a domed lid and tapering body, a surface enlivened by hammer marks, and an

FIGURE 3. Charles Robert Ashbee. Loop- Handled Dish, 1902. Manufactured by the Guild of Handicraft, London. Silver and

chrysoprase; 8 x 30.5 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago, European Decorative Arts Purchase Fund (1985.261).

OMAR RAMSDEN AND ALWYN CARR 171



embossed running-vine border at the foot and rim of the lid. The ivory handle and finial set with chrysoprase, an inexpensive jade-green stone, add an impression of luxury to the coffee pot. The second example is a loop- handled dish of 1902 (fig. 3) that is framed by handles formed of two drawn-out wires soldered together, which spread on either side of the bowl.5 This use of wirework in many forms was characteristic of the Guild of Handicraft. In 1898, ten years after the establishment of Ashbee's Guild, Ramsden and Carr went into partnership in London and for the next twenty years produced hand-wrought silver for special commissions as well as for stock.

The Partnership of Ramsden and Carr

Omar Ramsden was born in Sheffield on August 21, 1873. His father's firm, Benjamin W Ramsden & Company, was described in 1879 as "manufactur- ers of silver and electroplate fish carvers, fish eaters, dessert spoons, knives, scoops etc."' For an unknown reason, the younger Ramsden spent seven years of his childhood in Illinois before returning to Sheffield in 1887 and, at the age of fourteen, began an apprenticeship to a firm of silversmiths.7 Shortly thereafter, he began to take evening classes at the Sheffield School of Art, where he was to meet his future partner, Alwyn Charles Ellison Carr. Carr was born in Sheffield on August 8, 1872, and like Ramsden was a scholarship student at the Sheffield School of Art. When Carr's scholarship ended in 1897, both students left Sheffield for a six-month tour of Italy, France, Germany, and Spain, "studying fine examples of applied art work in the churches and public buildings of those countries."'

Ramsden's talent was recognized early. In 1896, he submitted a model for a jewel casket "to be worked in silver" to the National Competition at the South Kensington Museum, London (known from 1899 onward as the Victoria and Albert Museum). These competitions, "founded to advance design and ennoble the decoration of our industries," were annual events open to art students throughout the country who submitted thousands of entries. Those objects chosen were exhibited to the public. The exhibit was reviewed in The Studio, and Ramsden's casket, one of I,037 objects on display, was favorably noted and illustrated.' A rectangular box and lid with low-relief, it featured curvilinear moldings, raised on four splayed feet and supported at the corners by baluster-shaped columns.

Ramsden and Carr settled in London in 1898, and entered their first joint mark in that city on February Iy of the same year. At first, they lived and worked at Stamford Bridge Studios, Fulham Road. In 1900, they moved their studio to Albert Studios on Albert Bridge Road and their workshop to Fulham; by 1905, Ramsden and Carr were living at St. Dunstan's Studios, Seymour Place, Fulham Road, named for the patron saint of goldsmiths.'o On May 6, 1904, Alwyn C. E. Carr, metalworker, and Omar Ramsden, metalworker, were elected to the membership of the Art Workers' Guild. The guild was founded in 1884 by a group of architects to encourage discus- sions and demonstrations, and to sponsor lectures and dinners among "Handicraftsmen and Designers in the Arts.""11 The influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement remained strong in the guild. William Morris had been an early member of the group and Ashbee's membership was contemporary with Ramsden's and Carr's.

It is impossible today to document the individual contributions of Ramsden and Carr in the evolution of any particular object during the period leading up to the First World War. The whereabouts of the workshop

172 ZELLEKE



records of their partnership are unknown.12 Their working methods are undocumented, but perhaps their attitude can be heard in Ramsden's remarks: "Let the design be entirely in the hands of a directing designer, who has studied his profession, not only in our own schools of art but who has had, at least, his 'wanderjahr' abroad to study the treasures of Europe."13 Ramsden and Carr directed a large workshop of anonymous, highly skilled silverworkers to produce silver often inscribed with the names Omar Ramsden and Alwyn Carr, in addition to the usual hallmark. Ramsden's and Carr's very personalities and skills were subsumed, to the amusement of contemporary critics:

Seldom have two artists collaborated so harmoniously as Ramsden and Carr. The pair is inseparable, working together, living together, and always of the same view in all questions of art and life. The effect is almost comical when all questions asked personally of Ramsden or of Carr are answered with "we." Ramsden alone or Carr alone has no opinion. "We" made this or that; this or that artwork in Florence pleases "us" the most, is always the reply. Then, it happens that either of the

FIGURE 4. Omar Ramsden and Alwyn Carr. Vase and Stand, 1900oo. Silver and marble; 29.8 x 10.5 cm. London, Victoria and Albert Museum (1346 & A. 1900). An almost identi- cal vase in a private London collection, dating to 1899, bears a Greek inscription that translates as "beloved coworker." A

closely related piece by Ramsden and Carr, in a private Canadian collection, is influenced by the same Art Nouveau aesthetic. But unlike the Victoria and Albert Museum vase, which is embossed with pomegranates, the Canadian example is ornamented with flower bulbs whose stems emerge from puddles of water to twist themselves around the body of the vase and blossom as fully formed lilies.




inseparable pair has made a tiny physical mistake. Ramsden suffers from nervous blinking of his eyes, while Carr reveals his nervousness by stuttering. Certainly "ego" ["Personalia"] has nothing to do with the art of Ramsden and Carr.14

Their somewhat eccentric personalities did not stand in the way of their early patronage by individuals and institutions. The first piece of silver by Ramsden and Carr to enter the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum was a slender vase and stand made in 1900 (fig. 4) and purchased in that same year for fifteen guineas. Inspired by Art Nouveau decoration, the sinuous tendrils of the vase rise from its foot and wrap themselves around the vase to emerge as pomegranates. The "whiplash" effect of the repousse lines and the stylization of organic growth is reminiscent of French Art Nouveau as seen on furniture by Louis Majorelle.

The gently dimpled surface of the vase is due to the technique that Ramsden and Carr used. The repeated hammering of the surface to raise the silver vessel accords with the Arts and Crafts aesthetic in which value was placed on the evidence of handwork, and it also accords with Ramsden's stated preference for handmade silver:

The true silversmith of to-day, as in the best Gothic times, is a beater of metals. His eye, by instinct and a prolonged study of successful forms and decorations selects

FIGURE 5. Omar Ramsden and Alwyn Carr. Claret Jugs, 1907. Silver, glass, and garnets; 29.7 x 14.9 x 12.6 cm (right); 29.4 x 15.1 x

12.7 cm (left). The Campbell Collection

(150.I1,2). Photo: Frank Tancredi. The use of

silver and glass for these claret jugs was

possibly inspired by Ashbee. As early as

1897 or 1898, Ashbee began designing decanters in which a network of silver tendrils form a girdle around a pear-shaped flask of green glass; the twisted tendrils also form the decanter's handle, and attach themselves to a silver collar.

174 ZELLEKE.



a scheme that can be produced at first hand by hammer work, without the interme- diate processes of modelling, moulding, and casting."5

But Ramsden cautioned:

Please do not think that by beaten work I mean hammer marks, such as those with which our West-end shops now sometimes pock-mark their otherwise machine- made silver, in order to draw in the chance customer who has been told "if a thing is hammer-marked it is hand-made, and artistic.""16

A pair of claret jugs in glass and silver mounts set with garnets by Ramsden and Carr in 1907 (fig. 5) shows the ease with which they both absorbed the decorative and structural vocabulary of silver as it was made at the Guild of Handicraft. Like Ashbee's silver, these jugs are set with cabochon stones. Wirework was used to form each of the handles, as well as the four brackets

spanning the glass vessels that join the top to the bottom mounts.

The Influence of Japanese Art on Ramsden and Carr

The decorative use of fish, in particular the image of carp swimming through water as found on the stem of the bowl by Ramsden and Carr (fig. 6), owes its inspiration to Japanese prints and other Japanese arts that became increas-

ingly familiar to Europeans in the second half of the nineteenth century. In

1853, Commodore Matthew C. Perry sailed the United States Navy into the

Bay of Yedo, forcing a reluctant Japan to open its doors to Western trade. In

I858, commercial trade agreements were signed between Japan and the United States and several Europe countries, including Britain.17 The British were first introduced to Japanese art on a large scale in 1862 at the London International Exhibition; one of the displays featured a Japanese court hous-

ing 623 prints and books, bronzes, and porcelain and lacquer pieces assembled by Sir Rutherford Alcock, the British minister to Japan.'" William

Burges, the English architect and advocate of the Gothic style who was him- self a collector of Japanese prints, reviewed the displays at the 1862 exhibition: "If the visitor wishes to see the real Middle Ages, he must visit the Japanese Court for at the present day the arts of the Middle Ages have deserted

Europe and are only to be found in the East."'9 This curious analogy between Gothic and Japanese art was described almost thirty-five years later by the

designer and children's-book illustrator Walter Crane, who wrote:

Japan is, or was, a country very much, as regards its arts and handicrafts with the exception of architecture, in the condition of a European country in the Middle Ages, with wonderfully skilled artists and craftsmen in all manner of work of the decorative kind, who were under the influence of a free and informal naturalism. Here at least was a living art, an art of the people, in which traditions and craftsman- ship were unbroken, and the results full of attractive variety, quickness, and natural- istic force. What wonder that it took Western artists by storm, and that its effects have become so patent.20

Europeans learned about Japanese ornament from Japanese prints as well as from textiles, lacquer, and porcelain, which themselves were imported in growing quantities and were featured in publications that discussed Japanese art. In 1882, George Ashdown Audsley published The Ornamental Arts of Japan, which surveys Japanese paintings, prints, and decorative arts that are illustrated with black-and-white and chromolithographic plates. In the sec- tion dealing with embroidery, Audsley discussed the kimono, obi (or sash), and fukusa, the latter defined as "squares of rich textile fabrics, used for covering ceremonial presents during their transmission."2 He went on to write




FIGURE 6. Omar Ramsden and Alwyn Carr. Bowl (detail of fig. I). Ramsden and Carr

freely appropriated decorative motifs as needed for each of their works in silver. While the swimming carp show a strongly Japanese influence-an influence that

appears to be unique to this piece within Ramsden and Carr's oeuvre-the network of straps that cradle the glass bowl is found in other pieces by Ramsden and Carr, and is reminiscent of Ashbee's work.

FIGURE 7. After a Japanese woodblock

print from Hokusai's E-hon Tei-kin O-rai (Illustrated Home Precepts). Photo: George Ashdown Audsley, The Ornamental Arts of Japan, vol. i, sec. 2

(London, 1882), p. 7. The influence of Jap- anese art on Ramsden and Carr's design for the Art Institute bowl (figs. I and 6) is

suggested by this illustration and the two that follow (figs. 8 and 9). In these three illustrations, there is a similarity between

Japanese artists' conception of swimming carp and Ramsden and Carr's use of fish in their design.

176 ZELLEKE



4k, ls W~ g

FIGURE 8. Katsushika Taito II (Japanese, 1804-1848). Carp and Water Weeds, c.

i830s. Woodblock print; 37.6 x 17.8 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift from Mr. and Mrs. James Michener (i958.i60).

FIGURE 9. Carp and Water (stencil plate). From the collection assembled by Wilson Crewdon, Esq. Photo: "Japanese Stencil Plates," The Studio 40 (1907), p. 52.




that fukusa were most often decorated with birds, insects, trees, flowers, figures, and landscapes, as well as varieties of fish:

The fish most commonly embroidered onfukusa is the native koi or carp. This the Japanese artists never fail to represent with wonderful spirit, swimming or swerving in the water or dashing up a waterfall . . .When represented swimming, it seldom appears straight: one of the most favorite positions is that of a sudden swerve.22

This description of the carp was accompanied by a black-and-white illustration (fig. 7) that Audsley described as being "from a design by HOKUSAI, very probably intended by him for a fukusa." The larger fish may be related to the woodblock print Carp and Water Weeds by Katsushika Taito II dating from around the 1830s (fig. 8). While the initial burst of enthusiasm for

Japanese art and the European appropriation of motifs and compositional devices had long since passed by 19o8, when Ramsden and Carr designed the Art Institute bowl, Japanese art and crafts continued to exert their influence into the twentieth century. In 1907, for example, The Studio published a short note on "Japanese Stencil Plates" that included the illustration Carp and Water (fig. 9). One of the principal qualities admired by Europeans in

Japanese art was the compositional asymmetry so obvious in the Japanese print (fig. 8) though less so in the stencil plate (fig. 9). It is interesting to see

FIGURE IO. Augustus Welby Northmore

Pugin (British, 1812-1852). Model Chalice,

1846/49. Manufactured by John Hardman and Company, Birmingham, Eng. Gilt base-

metal, enamels, and semiprecious stones; h. 26 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago, Bessie Bennett Fund (1981.640)

178 ZELLEKE



that, in the Art Institute bowl (fig. i), Ramsden and Carr appropriated the Japanese motif of the "sudden swerve" of the carp swimming through water even as they subdued the asymmetrical design by balancing the fish with its mirror image.

Gothic and Celtic Influences

The architect and designer A. W. N. Pugin was an important early nineteenth-century designer whose work and life, in certain respects, parallel those of Ramsden and Carr. An ardent Roman Catholic in Anglican England, Pugin sought to reassert the primacy of the Gothic style for contemporary English architecture and for all interior furnishings. In his designs for goldsmith's work, Pugin evoked the past glories of Gothic ecclesiastical metalwork, as in a richly textured, jewel- and enamel-encrusted chalice in the Art Institute's collection (fig. io). It is a display piece for the full range of goldsmiths' techniques, from piercing and casting to engraving and enameling, and it was intended to attract commissions from religious institutions for silver and gilt ecclesiastical vessels.

FIGURE II. Omar Ramsden and Alwyn Carr. Monstrance, 1907. Silver gilt, enamel, and

crystal, amethysts; h. 76.2 cm. London, Westminster Cathedral. Photo: The Wor-

shipful Company of Goldsmiths, London.




Ramsden and Carr, like Pugin, were Roman Catholic and created a number of splendid examples of ecclesiastical metalwork for Catholic foun- dations, among them a silver-gilt, enamel- and jewel-encrusted monstrance for Westminster Cathedral in London (fig. ii). Like many of Ramsden and Carr's commissioned pieces, the monstrance was reviewed in the contemporary art press.23 Inspired by medieval Spanish examples, the monstrance is in the form of a crucifix. Its pierced and embossed arms terminate with enameled panels that show on one side the Christ Child with the Virgin, Christ the Good Shepherd, and Christ's Crucifixion and Ascension, and on the reverse it displays portraits of the four Evangelists. The crystal chamber for the display of the host is at the center of the cross and is surrounded by a panel embossed on one side with sheaves of wheat and on the other with vines, which refer to the bread and wine of the sacrament. Silver spokes, symbolic of light, radiate from the heart of the cross, which is also surrounded by a ring set with amethysts to symbolize clouds. The stem is formed of four niches, each of which contains a figure: Saint Peter, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Clare, and Saint Colette. While the monstrance is traditional in form, Ramsden and Carr made extensive use of both Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau motifs and techniques. Wirework was employed to indicate the light radiating from the center of the cross, and a repeating, undulating, repousse border was made to depict the ring of clouds, which is reminiscent of the repeating pattern on the foot of the Art Institute's bowl.

Celtic inspiration also found its way into Ramsden and Carr's early work. A revival of interest in Celtic ornament and design was ignited in the second half of the nineteenth century with the discovery of the Tara brooch and the Ardagh chalice.24 The chief proponent of Celtic revival silver in

England was the designer Archibald Knox, who provided silver designs for the entrepreneur and retailer Arthur Lasenby Liberty. In 1875, Liberty opened his first shop on Regent Street in London called the East India House, where he sold imported textiles, metalwork, and other goods from the Far East. As the enterprise flourished, additional lines appeared. In 1899, a new silver style was introduced under the name Cymric, and

Liberty commissioned work from several designers. Part of Liberty's success was in the adoption of craft designs for commercial production, which allowed the dissemination of contemporary design to a wider and less afflu- ent market, and also competed with such true Arts and Crafts enterprises as Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft.

The work of Archibald Knox has come to signify the best of the

Cymric line, in which tight, restrained knots of interlacing, often in combi- nation with enamel work and set with stones, were used with restraint on

boldly conceived pieces. For example, a large drum-shaped bowl attributed to Knox (fig. 12) is supported by four pairs of legs set onto a broad circular base. The bowl and stand are decorated with a blue and green enameled, interlaced border, and the bowl is mounted with oval cabochons of turquoise that flank each of four loop handles. While acknowledging the stylistic importance of Arts and Crafts silver, Liberty found a way to make it commercially by accommodating machine techniques, such as spinning on a lathe, to produce objects with greater ease and less cost than the hand- worked objects produced by Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft or by Ramsden and Carr's handworking shop. Ramsden and Carr freely adapted Celtic interlaced decoration for the decorative borders on each of the pieces in the tea set they made between 1912 and 19I4 (fig. 13), as well as on the shoulders of the pair of claret jugs with repousse roses and interlaced knots (fig. 5).

I8o ZELLEKE



FIGURE 12. Attributed to Archibald Knox

(British, 1864-1933). Rosebowl, 1902.

Manufactured by Liberty and Company, Birmingham, Eng. Silver, enamels, and

turquoise; 19 x 41.9 cm. Photo: Historical

Design Collection, Inc., New York. This rosebowl is one of the boldest pieces of silver Knox designed for Liberty's. Celtic interlace is found not only in the low-relief, enameled borders that encircle the drum form and outline the perimeter of the stand, but also as freestanding motifs at the base of each of the bracketlike legs.

OMAR RAMSDEN AND ALWYN CARR 18 I



FIGURE 13. Omar Ramsden and Alwyn Carr. Tea Set, 1912-14. Silver and chrysoprase. Sold at Sotheby's, London (Dec. 18, 1975: lot 57). Photo courtesy of Sotheby's.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Carr joined the army, leaving Ramsden in London to run their business. In 1918, their partnership was dissolved, and Ramsden and Carr established separate workshops. Carr's production was relatively small, in the tradition of the Arts and Crafts movement. Ramsden, however, retained St. Dunstan's studio, and the silver

workshop and craftsmen who had worked for so long under the partnership. Ramsden was to have twenty more years of successful and high-pro- file commissions, adapting as necessary to changes of fashion and style.

Ramsden and Carr's success can be attributed to their flexibility in

adapting form and ornament as the tastes and requirements of their patrons and changing fashions required. They were certainly eclectic in their sources of inspiration. The chief characteristic of their work under discussion here is the density of surface patterns on the silver. This can be con- trasted with the austerity of ornament of the Guild of Handicraft's silver and the boldness of form and clarity of surface of many of Knox's designs for Liberty's. The bowl in the Art Institute's collection is a premier example of Ramsden and Carr's work, showing the facility with which they absorbed the stylistic currents of their day to create an object with shim-

mering surfaces. These characteristics established them not only as modern silversmiths in the Arts and Crafts tradition so forcefully advocated by Ruskin, Morris, and Ashbee, but also as highly successful silversmiths in the years prior to the First World War.

182 ZELLEKE



London), A Portrait: Maud (c. 1876; whereabouts unknown), Arrangement in White and Black (1876; Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), Arrangement in Black: Lady Meux (1881-82; Honolulu Academy of Arts), Arrangement in Black No. 8: Portrait

of Mrs. Cassat (1883-85; private collection), and Rose et or: La Tulipe.

42. On the history of the painting, see Young et al. (note 2), p. 56.







ZELLEKE, "Omar Ramsden and Alwyn Carr: An Arts and Crafts Collaboration," pp. 168-182.

I wish to thank Lynn Springer Roberts for long conversations

regarding Ramsden and Carr while she was immersed in research-

ing a private collection of Ramsden silver. I am also grateful to

Shirley Bury, former Curator of Metalwork at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, for her helpful comments on an early draft of this essay.

i. The bowl by Ramsden and Carr was acquired on the London art market. Efforts to trace the provenance of the bowl beyond the dealer from whom it was purchased have proved unsuccessful. While Ramsden and Carr's work was repeatedly featured in early twentieth-century periodicals, the Art Institute's bowl does not

appear to have been illustrated in any of the journals that have come to the attention of the author.

2. Omar Ramsden, "English Silver and its Future," Journal of the

Royal Society of Arts 77 (Nov. 30, 1928), p. 54.

3. William Morris, "Some Thoughts on the Ornamented MSS of the Middle Ages," HM6440, p. 3, Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif., as cited in Peter Stansky, Redesigning the World: William Morris, the i88os, and the Arts and Crafts (Princeton, N.J., 1985), pp. 265-66.

4. The Guild of Handicraft was moved in 1902 to the village of Chipping Camden in Gloucestershire, where it remained until 19o8.

5. In his monograph on Ashbee, Alan Crawford noted that when dishes such as this one were described in the Guild of Handicraft

catalogues as jam or butter dishes, they were accompanied by green-glass liners. See Crawford, C. R. Ashbee (New Haven, Conn., 1985), p. 337.

6. Unless otherwise noted, the details of the early lives of Ramsden and Carr are based on information in Peter Cannon-Brookes, Omar Ramsden, 1873-1939, exh. cat. (Birmingham, Eng., 1973).

7. Ibid., intro. For the specific reference to Illinois, see Herbert B. Grimsditch, "Omar Ramsden," in The Dictionary of National

Biography, 1931-1940, ed. L. G. Wickham Legg (I949; reprint, Oxford, 1975), pp. 728-29; this source was kindly brought to my attention by Eric Turner, Department of Metalwork, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

8. Grimsditch (note 7), p. 728.

9. Gleeson White, "The National Competition: South Kensington, 1896," The Studio 8, no. 42 (Sept. 1896), pp. 224-37-





































io. John Culme, The Directory of Gold & Silversmiths, vol. I (London, n.d.), p. 379.

ii. H. J. L. J. Masse, The Art-Workers' Guild, 1884-1934 (Oxford, 1935), p. 19.

12. Ramsden's solo career is documented in a series of workbooks

covering the years 1920 to 1939 in the collection of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in London.

13. Omar Ramsden, "Silversmiths' and Goldsmiths' Work," Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 58 (Jan. 28, 1910), p. 263.

14. P. G. Konody, "Metallarbeiten von Omar Ramsden und Alwyn Carr," Kunst und Kunsthandwerk 8 (1905), p. 174. I am most grateful to Paula Lee of the University of Chicago for providing this translation.

15. Ramsden (note 13), p. 257.

16. Ibid.

17. For a chronology of when Japanese goods were first introduced to England in the nineteenth century, see Elizabeth Aslin, "Japanese Influence on Nineteenth-Century Decorative Arts," in Susan M. Wright, ed., The Decorative Arts in the Victorian Period

(London, 1989), pp. 74-81.

i8. The quantity of objects was recorded in the 1862 exhibition

catalogue, as cited in Japan and Britain, An Aesthetic Dialogue 185o-I930, exh. cat. (London, 1991), p. 19.

19. William Burges, "The Japanese Court," The Gentleman's Magazine 213 (July 1862), p. 3, as cited in Aslin (note 17), p. 76.

20. Walter Crane, Of the Decorative Illustration of Books Old and New (1896; reprint, London, 1972), p. 132ff., as cited in Siegfried Wichmann, Japonisme (New York, i98o), p. 8.

21. George Ashdown Audsley, The Ornamental Arts of Japan, vol. I (London, 1882), p. 2.

22. Ibid., pp. 6-7.

23. "Fine Church Metal-work," The Art Journal (90o8), pp. 38-42.

24. For a recent discussion of the Celtic revival in nineteenth- and

twentieth-century art, see University of Chicago, The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, Imagining an Irish Past: The Celtic Revival, 1840-1940, exh. cat., ed. T. J. Edelstein (1992).

NOTES FOR PAGES 167-180 I~1








16. Ibid.


(London, 1989), pp. 74-81.






22. Ibid., pp. 6-7.












16. Ibid.


(London, 1989), pp. 74-81.






22. Ibid., pp. 6-7.







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