Mazer
Omar Ramsden (1873-1939)
Category
Silver
Date
1921 - 1922
Materials
Wood, maple, silver, sterling
Measurements
151 mm (Height); 248 mm (Diameter)129 mm (Diameter)
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 516492
Summary
A maple wood mazer with silver (sterling) foot, rim mount and boss, mark of Omar Ramsden, London, 1921/2. The maple wood is turned on a lathe to form a shallow circular bowl, then mounted with a silver pedestal foot, rim and boss. The foot is formed of several sections. At the base is a cast circular foot ring, which is soldered to the raised trumpet-shaped foot. The foot is made of a series of horizontal bands; the lowest with applied rope border; the next is concave; and the last is a wide band with applied narrow moulded borders joined by eight rectangular ribs; its top is everted to support the mazer. Within the foot a wide flange is secured to the wood of the mazer by four screws with quatrefoil heads. Round the rim is a wide everted mount, which is raised and applied to a band secured to the inside of the wood mazer with six rivets. The exterior of the rim is applied with a rope border and an openwork border of arches and stylised pendant fruit. Inside the centre of the mazer a shaped circular boss is held with six square-headed rivets. It is embossed with a depiction of the Muse of Literature with long flowing hair and pre-Raphaelite dress; in her right hand she holds a pen; a scroll of parchment lies across her knees; above, to her right, the word ‘LITERAE’ is embossed. Heraldry: None Scratch weight: None
Full description
NOTE ON MAZERS Mazers are an ancient form of carved or turned wood drinking vessel. Often made of maple, beech or walnut, because of the close grain of these woods; they have a broad bowl and usually, but not always, a low foot. Mazers belonging to the wealthy had finely decorated silver or silver-gilt mounts added to the rim of the bowl and foot, and a central boss (known as a ‘founce’ in the 15th century) which could depict a heraldic device, the Virgin or a saint, and was sometimes enamelled. In 1328 Canterbury Cathedral owned 138. However, only about 80 medieval mounted mazers survive, with most in Oxford and Cambridge colleges, livery companies, and museums. One of the earliest is in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Known as the Swan Mazer, and dated to about 1380, it measures 13 cm in diameter, and is set with a raised boss in the form of a hollow column topped with a model of a swan with lowered beak. When liquid is poured above the above the level of the beak a syphon empties the liquid out of the base and onto the holder; a reminder not to be greedy! The fashion for mazers died out in the early to mid-16th century in England and a little later in Scotland, although a few continued to be used after this. Samual Pepys notes in his diary in 1660 that he drank from a mazer ‘with a picture of the Virgin with the Child in her arms, done in silver’, which belonged to King Edward VI’s Almshouses in Saffron Walden. When sold in 1929, it was recorded as bearing the hallmark of 1507. The interest in antique silver, including ancient mazers, was stimulated by the Loan Exhibition held at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1862, when seven wood mazers mounted in silver-gilt were displayed. However, the revival of their production did not start until the beginning of the next century when Lord Lee of Fareham commissioned Omar Ramsden to make the first modern silver mounted mazer. The fashion for these historicist bowls caught on, and by the 1920s Ramsden was designing and producing maple mazers in different sizes with variously complex mounts. Examples often appear at auction and many are held in public institutions. NOTES ON OMAR RAMSDEN Omar Ramsden (1873–1939) was born into Sheffield’s silver trade. His father started as an engraver but by 1879 he was listed in White’s Sheffield Directory as the proprietor of Benjamin W Ramsden & Co ‘manufacturers of silver and electroplate fish carvers, fish eaters, dessert spoons, knives, scoops, etc. at the Rockingham Works’. Omar spent seven years of his childhood in America. Whether his family travelled with him is uncertain, but by 1887 the family were all in Sheffield and Omar was apprenticed to a firm of silversmiths. From 1890 he attended evening classes at the Sheffield School of Art, where he met Alwyn Carr, who seven years later became his business partner. When Ramsden won first prize in the competition to design and make a mace for the first Lord Mayor of Sheffield, he turned to Carr, with his superior smithing skills, for help. The mace is inscribed ‘OMAR RAMSDEN AND ALWYN C.E. CARR MADE ME IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1899’, setting a precedent for the famous ‘signature’ which was used on all their silver, and by Ramsden alone after the dissolution of the partnership in 1919 Ramsden is remembered for his understanding of the Arts and Crafts Movement, although unlike CR Ashbee and its other exponents, Ramsden was prepared to use machinery to mass produce his silver before it was finished by hand to create the distinctive hammered surface indicative of hand raised silver. This impression was reinforced with the Latin inscription ‘ME FECIT’, claiming that the object had been made by the partners, or latterly Ramsden alone. In fact he and Carr ran a successful design studio and workshop, and their silver was made by a team of highly skilled craftsmen. Their large and varied production was sold by Liberty & Co, as well as directly to private and corporate clients, including Lord Rothermere, the Honourable Artillery Company, the University of London, the Goldsmiths’ Company and other livery companies. The workshop also had a large output of liturgical items, and Ramsden designed a number of war memorials in the aftermath of World War I. Jane Ewart, 2025
Provenance
David Black London W1, sold the mazer to Lord Fairhaven on 28 May 1942 for £30, unnumbered Invoice (Urban) Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Baron Fairhaven (1896-1966) bequeathed by Lord Fairhaven to the National Trust along with the house and the rest of the contents. National Trust
Credit line
Anglesey Abbey, the Fairhaven Collection (National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
On the outside of the rim mount and the foot: Hallmarks: ‘OR’ (Omar Ramsden*), lion passant (sterling), leopard’s head (London), and ‘f’ (1921/2) *Rosemary Ransome Wallis; Treasures of the 20th Century: Silver, jewellery and art medals from the 20th Century Collection of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, London, 2000, p 183 On the underside of the foot: Maker’s inscription: ‘OMAR RAMSDEN ME FECIT’ On the underside of the foot: Old NT Inventory Number: ‘AA/S/101’ On the underside of the foot: Current NT Inventory Number: ‘516492’
Makers and roles
Omar Ramsden (1873-1939), goldsmith
References
Newman 2000: Harold Newman, An Illustrated Dictionary of Silverware, London 2000 Ellis, 1999: Myrtle Ellis. 'Huttleston Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966) as a collector of English silver.' Apollo, 1999 Cannon-Brookes 1973: Peter Cannon-Brookes, Birmingham Gold and Silver 1773–1973: An Exhibition Celebrating the Bicentenary of the Assay Office: 28 July – 16 September 1973 (ex. cat.), Birmingham 1973; venue: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery Clayton 1971: Michael Clayton, The Collector’s Dictionary of Silver and Gold of Great Britain and North America, New York 1971 Hughes 1951: G.R. Hughes, British Silverwork Including Ceremonial Plate by Contemporary Craftsmen: Exhibited at Goldsmiths’ Hall 1951 (ex. cat.), London 1951; venue: Goldsmiths’ Hall