Caption

Rebecca Emes was a partner in one of the largest manufacturing silversmiths of its day. Emes and Barnard’s London workshop created pieces for its own aristocratic customers and also supplied major retailers, including the prestigious royal goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge & Rundell. Following the death of her husband, John (1762–1808), like Louisa Courtauld and many other women before her, Emes took over his business. Her first mark was registered in 1808, jointly with William Emes, her husband’s executor, probably to ease the process of arranging John’s estate. A few months later she registered her first mark with her partner, Edward Barnard (d.1855), who was a reliable and known hand, having previously worked as foreman of the company for John. Together, they developed a highly successful business, supplying silver across Britain and overseas, including to the USA and India. The range of products the firm created was impressive and meant it could capitalise on a market of wealthy buyers hungry for gleaming silver to adorn their homes. It also shifted cannily as styles and habits evolved, introducing new patterns and forms in response to consumer demand. Emes and Barnard produced tea and coffee sets; dining accoutrements for the fashionable table, such as cruets, tureens and toast racks; and more personal practical items, such as inkstands and chamber candlesticks. The towering centrepiece at Anglesey Abbey – which appears to be lifted up on the backs of three winged lions – would have been a magnificent conversation piece at dessert, as well as providing light for those gathered around the table (and fruit to be taken from the bowl).

Summary

A massive centrepiece comprising a six-light candelabrum, silver-gilt (sterling), with central glass bowl, mark of Rebecca Emes & Edward Barnard, London, 1818/9. Standing on a triangular base, the central column rises through a series of foliate calyxes and knops to three bifurcated branches each with a pair of sconces and nozzles, and a central ring to support a glass bowl. Three cast acanthus leaf capped scroll feet support the triangular stand with incurved sides and canted corners, made from sheet metal. The undecorated sides are applied at the base and cornice with borders of water leaves. Attached by shaped square screws to each corner of the flat stand is a finely modelled cast chimera with the body and head of a lion, eagle’s wings and goat’s horns. In the centre, standing on a circular foot with egg and dart border, is a waisted column of stylised leaves. A screw passes through the column to attach the first tier of vases. The lions and column support a triangular platform with incurved, low stepped, sides. Over it, screwed on each corner, is a slightly domed platform chased all over with scrolling foliage and scrolled corners. In the centre, sitting on a laurel leaf wreath, is a cast calyx of four large everted acanthus leaves round a baluster-shaped knop chased with a matted spiral. Above it a border of scrolling foliage supports a compressed circular knop topped by a second laurel wreath. Screwed above is the second tier of vases, which commences with a hemi-spherical calyx-like bowl of everted acanthus leaves. It contains a slender trumpet-shaped vase of matted stiff leaves, which contains a second trumpet-shaped vase with sides rising to form six large scrolled acanthus leaves. Between the leaves is soldered a flat platform containing three sockets for the branches and a narrow circular threaded band, which screws to the support for the glass bowl. Soldered to the support are three large scrolling acanthus leaves, which support the cast circular foliate band which holds the glass bowl. The hemi-spherical base of the blown bowl is cut with a sunburst; the flared petal-shaped sides are cut with alternating panels of diamonds or a trellis containing stars. The wavy rim is cut with a pattern of zigzags. Each cast cornucopia-shaped branch is reeded and leaf capped, with an openwork floral scroll suspended below. The drip pans are formed of six everted acanthus leaves which are soldered to the top of the branches. The sconces screw to the drip pans. They are formed as classical urns with a fluted lower half, and have detachable nozzles each with a cast water leaf border. The sockets are stamped with one to three dots, which correspond to the dots stamped on the branches’ plugs. The sconces and the nozzles are numbered ‘1’ to ‘6’, so that the branch stamped with one dot fits sconces and nozzles numbered ‘1’ and ‘2’, and so on. Heraldry: None Hallmarks:  Fully hallmarked on the underside of the base: ‘RE’ over ‘EB’ (Rebecca Emes & Edward Barnard*), lion passant (sterling), leopard’s head (London), ‘c’ (1818/9), and monarch’s head (duty mark); part marked on the ring to hold the glass bowl: monarch’s head, lion passant, and ‘c’; on plugs: monarch’s head, and lion passant; and on the nozzles: monarch’s head, lion passant, ‘c’, and ‘RE’ over ‘EB’ *Arthur Grimwade: London Goldsmiths 1697-1837, London, 1990, p 166, no 2309 Other parts may be marked but it was not possible to unscrew the column to check the platforms above the chimeras, nor the two tiers of vases. The branches appear to be unmarked. Scratch weight: None

Full description

NOTES ON WOMEN SILVERSMITHS AND THE FIRM OF EMES & BARNARD The use of the term ‘maker’s mark’ has often hindered our understanding of the making and sale of objects made of precious metals. From 1300 the Goldsmiths’ Company was required by statute to guarantee the purity of all silver and gold sold in England. They did this by stamping a ‘hallmark’. Initially this was just a leopard’s head, but it was soon realised that an additional mark was needed to identify the person responsible for sending the items to be assayed (tested). Therefore, in 1363, a further statute ordained that every master goldsmith should have his work struck with a unique mark. This mark, known as the ‘maker’s mark’ has been recorded in the ledgers kept by the Goldsmiths’ Company ever since. Additional hallmarks followed in the subsequent centuries. The maker’s mark does not promise that the object was made by the owner of the mark or that they were even capable of making wares in precious metals. It is the mark of the individual or business who took responsibility for objects sent for assay. They were liable if the metal was not of legal standard. The maker’s mark (now more commonly called a sponsor’s mark) could be registered by a shop keeper selling items of precious metals, or the sleeping partner or manager of a business involved in the production of silver and gold objects, as well as a smith working in silver or gold. The history of women involved in the trade is equally misunderstood. The custom for women to register a sponsor’s mark, with which to strike the silver they made, only gained momentum with the Arts & Crafts movement in the late 19th century. Before then, most if not all, the women who entered their mark at an assay office were the widows of goldsmiths. It was essential for them to register this new mark if they wished to have the business continue and the silver hallmarked. But it is difficult to discover the role that they played in the business unless there are records, such as insurance policies, which mention them by name. Some of the women were merely sleeping partners. Others, who came from a family of goldsmiths or who had helped in their husband’s business would have gained some of the skills and knowledge necessary to help it continue, but they were aided by their children, a foreman, or existing workmen. They may have liaised with clients and suppliers, guided their employees, and instructed their apprentices, but it is unlikely that they worked at a silversmith’s bench. It took capital to own a goldsmiths’ business. The widows who entered their sponsor’s mark may have been directing the business, but they were not doing menial work, and they had not served apprenticeships with the Goldsmiths’ Company. It is, however, possible to glimpse into the world of the female apprentices by studying the Goldsmiths’ Company’s ledgers. Between 1578 and 1800 17,161 apprentices were registered, of whom just 168 were girls. Although, as Professor Welda La Jean Chaffin’s extensive research has shown, these numbers do not reflect an accurate picture, as it was not necessary to practise the craft of your chosen livery company. The majority of the 168 girls worked with textiles; millinery is often cited, but also the making of petticoats, stays, hats and wigs. A small number of the girls were apprenticed to ‘goldsmiths’ or ‘jewellers’, so it is likely that they were sent to work in a shop to learn the retail trade. Just a handful of the girls had masters whose occupations were connected with the making of goods. They include a ‘wire drawer’, ‘engraver’, ‘plateworker’, ‘burnisher’, and a ‘refiner’, so it is possible that the girls were taught these skills, but it is also possible that, when the girl was apprenticed to a husband and wife, she was studying the wife’s trade, which is not listed. [1] Just 34% of the girls served their seven-year apprenticeship and became free. Their freedom permitted them to operate a business in the City of London. None of the free women entered a sponsor’s mark. A ll this does not mean that there were no female workers involved in the manufacturing of items of precious metals. Behind the scenes there must have been a large number of nameless girls and women doing the poorly paid unskilled tasks, such as the stamping of small parts or the dirty jobs of polishing or burnishing the silver. We know of their existence from the few goldsmiths’ ledgers which survive; or the 19th century advertisements for female burnishes and button makers; as well as the Parliamentary Commission of 1862 which discovered girls as young as ten employed in factories. [2] Only rarely is the name of a skilled female worker found in a workshop’s books. Emes & Barnard’s ledgers record payments to a Miss Edwards, a sub-contractor who supplied both cast and chased parts. In 1819 she bought an ornate teapot which is described as ‘chased all over (with) scroll flowers, etc. by her and cast work done by her’, implying that she had worked on the teapot herself; but it is not known where she acquired her training; and she never registered a sponsor’s mark. [3] Rebecca Emes (1782-1859) did not come from a family of goldsmiths. Her father, Richard Robins, was described as a gentleman, the heir to Itteringham Hall, a modest freehold estate of just over 220 acres in Norfolk. Her mother, Hannah, was the daughter of Edward Dyne of Kent, a prosperous surgeon, alderman and sometime mayor of Rochester. Rebecca probably met John Emes through her brother, Richard junior, who lived with his maternal grandfather in Kent, training as a surgeon before moving to London. The banns for Rebecca’s and John’s marriage describe her as living in Tunstall, Kent, which was probably the address of her uncle, who witnessed the marriage of his eighteen-year-old niece to the thirty-eight-year-old John Emes, on 7 April 1801 at St James’s Piccadilly, where John was listed as a parishioner. [4] John Emes (1762-1810) came from Derbyshire, where his father, William, was a landscape designer and gardener, who received more than ninety commissions. These included Eaton Hall, Cheshire, where Lord Grosvenor hired him to replace Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown; Hawkstone Park, Shropshire, where he used the river to create a one-and-a-half miles long lake; and Sandon Hall, Staffordshire, where his use of flower beds close to the house anticipated the work of Humphrey Repton. [5] His ‘elegant plans in Indian ink on vellum’ may have inspired John’s drawing skills, as in 1778 he was apprenticed to the engraver in ordinary to George III, William Woollett of Green Street, Leicester Fields (later Square), for the unusually large payment of £105. It is not known how much of John’s early engraving was on silver, if any. The first record of his work is as a watercolour painter and engraver of prints. His pictures were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1790 and 1791, and he produced a collection of tinted drawings of the Lake District, sixteen of which were reproduced in Thomas West’s Guide to the Lakes. [6] There are no records to explain why Henry Chawner took John Emes into an equal partnership in 1796. Perhaps Chawner needed an engraver of exceptional talent to produce the fashionable bright-cut borders on the firm’s wares, or more likely he realised that Emes had the acumen to expand the business. Two years later Henry’s marriage to the banking heiress, Miss Hoare, allowed him to retire to the life of a country gentleman, becoming a sleeping partner. The business was left in the capable hands of Emes and the workshop manager, Edward Barnard. Barnard was the son of a silver flatter, who had been apprenticed to Charles Wright before being turned over to Thomas Chawner (Henry’s father), when he acquired the business. He obtained his freedom of the Goldsmiths’ Company in 1789, and was made works manager in 1798 at the age of thirty. Under the direction of Emes and Barnard the factory prospered, producing silver for some of the country’s most respected retailers such as Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, and Green, Ward & Green of London; Prince & Cattle of York; and clients – both retail and private – round Britain. Business was sufficiently good to allow the firm to be philanthropic. In December 1805, seven weeks after the Battle of Trafalgar, The British Press reported that Emes and ‘the Workmen at Mr Eme’s (sic) Manufactory, Paternoster-row’ donated the generous sums of £10 10s 0d and £8 1s 6d respectively to the Lloyds Patriotic Fund; a public subscription established to make to make annuities to the wounded servicemen and the families of those killed in the Napoleonic Wars, as well as to provide swords and silver cups to the heroes. [7] After just under eight years of marriage John Emes died unexpectedly and intestate. The Gentleman’s Magazine noted ‘Mr Emes, silversmith of Paternoster Row, going upstairs to bed, he fell down in a fit and expired immediately’. [8] He left his young wife, Rebecca, with two daughters, aged three and one, ‘and a fifty per cent stake in the ownership of a company she did not know how to run’. [9] Rebecca and her brother-in-law, William Emes, obtained Letters of Administration for John Emes’ estate and registered two joint marks, so that the firm’s wares could continue to be hallmarked. They also, presumably in consultation with Henry Chawner, took Edward Barnard into the partnership. Henry retained his fifty per cent of the shares, whilst Rebecca’s fifty per cent was divided equally between herself and Edward Barnard. A ten-year partnership agreement was signed in September 1808, with Henry Chawner and Rebecca Emes as sleeping partners, and Edward Barnard running the factory. [10] Barnard proceeded to modernise the firm by introducing methods of mass production, taking on additional staff, and enlarging the workshops. Like all rapidly expanding firms there were occasional cash-flow problems, but Chawner and Emes proved supportive partners, particularly during the challenging years when the continuing Napoleonic Wars damaged both the economy and confidence; and when major repairs were needed to the premises. In 1818 a second ten-year agreement was signed by the three partners. On its expiry in December 1828, Chawner and Emes retired as partners, but maintained shares in the new company formed by Barnard and his three sons; and known as Edward Barnard & Sons. Under Barnard’s management John Emes’ old business metamorphosed into a modern factory, eventually supplying almost every retail business in the country as well as many abroad. [11] Most of their ledgers survive at the Victoria & Albert Museum including the Pattern Book and Price Book with their finely detailed illustrations of their stock. These ledgers provide a unique archive of information on one of London’s foremost silver manufacturing companies. [1] Emma Bashforth, Welda LaJean Chaffin and Jessica Collins: Female Apprentices, Freewomen and Mistresses of the Goldsmiths’ Company 1578-1800, Silver Studies, The Journal of The Silver Society, Number 30, 2021 [2] John Culme: Nineteenth Century Silver, London, 1977 Philippa Glanville, Jennifer Faulds Goldsborough, et al: Women Silversmiths 1685-1845: Works from the Collection of The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, 1990, pp 13-28 [3] John Fallon: The House of Barnard, Silver Studies, The Journal of The Silver Society, Number 25, 2009, pp 42-62 [4] William and Maggie Vaughn-Lewis: Rebecca Emes: New Discoveries, Silver Studies, The Journal of The Silver Society, Number 25, 2009, pp 74-78 [5] Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Emes, William (1729/30-1803), Oxford, 2008 [ 6] Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee: Dictionary of National Biography, first edition available on Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/dictionarynatio21stepgoog/page/n366/mode/2up, p 354 [7] The British Press: Thursday 5 December 1805, report of a Special Meeting of the Committee of the Lloyds Patriotic Fund listing recipients of awards and subscribers to the Fund [8] The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle for the Year 1808, Volume LXXVIII: Obituary with Anecdotes of Remarkable Persons June 1808, p 560 [9] John Fallon: The House of Barnard, ibid. [10] John Fallon: The House of Barnard, ibid. [11] John Culme: The Dictionary of Gold & Silversmiths, Jewellers & Allied Traders 1838-1914, Woodbridge, 1987 NOTE ON STYLE OF CENTREPIECE From the end of the 19th century, drawings of ancient artefacts emerging from the excavations in Rome, Tivoli, Herculaneum and Pompeii influenced the design of many magnificent objects in silver. Anglesey Abbey’s centrepiece contains elements of designs by both Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) and Charles Heathcote Tatham (1772-1842). Piranesi (1720-1778) illustrates four candelabra or vases standing on triangular bases with incurved sides and canted corners in his folio of etchings published in 1778. [13] One etching, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, shows how Piranesi visualised piling up layers of classical ornament to create new and exciting works. [14] Two marble candelabrum, created from his designs, are held at the Ashmolean Museum. [15] Piranesi had been dead for several years by the time the young English architect, Tatham, arrived in Italy to study for two years. On his return to London Tatham published a folio of 102 etched plates, several with decorative borders or stacked vases.His illustration of the Barberini candelabrum depicts one of the vases with curled acanthus leaves similar to those on Anglesey Abbey’s centrepiece. The plate is now in the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the marble candelabrum, which was found in the 17th century in Hadrian’s Villa, is in the Vatican Museum. [16] [12] Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Vasi, candelabri, cippi, sarcofagi, tripodi, lucerne, ed ornamenti antichi disegnati ed incisi dal Cav. Gio. Batt. Piranesi, Vol. II, Rome, 1778 [13] Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Object number 41.71.1.13(14) [14] Ashmolean Museum, Oxford: Accession number: ANMichaelis241 and 242 [15] Victoria & Albert Museum, London: Accession number: D.1527-1898