History's Runway: The Ashbee Peacock Pendant and Chain, 1902

Chain and Pendant
Enamel, Gold and Persian Turquoise
Charles Robert Ashbee, 1902
Altered from its original design to include a different chain.
The Victoria & Albert Museum

I think this jewel by the celebrated C.R. Ashbee is quite smashing and lovely.  But, then, I typically like the work of Ashbee.  Charles Robert Ashbee was a multi-talented gent, known for his immense energy.  He served as a defining figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement.

In 1888, Ashbee founded the Guild of Handicraft in the East End of London.  His goal was to resurrect traditional craft skills and offer employment to residents of a deprived area of the city. While Ashbee was trained originally as an architect, he is better known also for his highly innovative furniture, metalwork, silver and jewelry designs.

Like many of this period, one of Ashbee's favorite motifs was the peacock and he is known to have designed about a dozen peacock jewels in the years around 1900. Here, we see one such example of these jewels.  In this instance, the bird is decorated with colorful enamels, and surmounts an uncut turquoise.  The use of unusual, uncut stones was a hallmark of the Arts and Crafts movement.  Three matching Persian turquoises are set in the chain.

Reverse.

Mastery of Design: The Ashbee Peacock Necklace, 1902

The Victoria & Albert Museum

In the early 1900s, C.R. Ashbee, one of the earliest Arts and Crafts designers of jewelry, designed nearly one dozen peacock brooches and pendants. Ashbee began designing jewels in the 1890s and will forever be remembered for contributed one of the key points of the Edwardian middle-class jewelry trade--that the value of jewelry lay in its design, not in the monetary value of the materials used. Personally, I like the expensive materials and a good design both, but I’m more Victorian in my mind-set.

Ashbee strove to design jewels that could be affordable to those not in the aristocracy. Take this pendant for example. Though this peacock pendant is one of Ashbee’s more extravagant creations, it would have been quite modest in price when compared with the heavy diamond-set jewelry of the peerage, gentry and nobility.

Always an admirer of the Renaissance of the Fifteenth Century when the “arts and crafts were one and indivisible,” Ashbee looked to Renaissance artists who were goldsmiths as well as painters, sculptors or architects for inspiration. In 1898, in fact, Ashbee published a translation of the two treatises of Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) on gold-smithing as well as sculpture.

For some reason, Ashbee had a weakness for peacocks. But, many of his period did. He wrote that, “the poor peacock of the Arts and Crafts with its proud tail exploding in fireworks” was a favorite subject because it was a bold, proud, bird which stood out against a drab and hostile world.  Here, he's rendered the bird in silver and gold, set with blister pearls, diamond sparks and a demantoid garnet for the eye, with three pendent pearls.

Mastery of Design: The Ashbee Turquoise Necklace, 1903

Necklace by C.R. Ashbee
1903
The Victoria & Albert Museum

C. R. Ashbee, as we have already discussed, was a man known for his enormous talents and energy and, also, as a defining figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement. In 1888, Ashbee founded the “Guild of Handicraft” in the East End of London.  His plan was to revive traditional craft skills and provide satisfying employment to a deprived area of the city.

Like many jewelers of the era, Ashbee trained originally as an architect.  Today, his designs are praised and he is known for his highly innovative furniture, metalwork, silver and jewelry designs.

This necklace of gold and silver, designed by Ashbee in 1903, is set with cabochon turquoises.  The stones demonstrate a deliberate lack of uniformity which nicely reflects Ashbee's appreciation for natural, uncut gems. The finished piece was originally hung with chains and pendants which were also made by the Guild of Handicraft.

Mastery of Design: The Ashbee Peacock Pendant and Chain, 1902

Chain and Pendant
Enamel, Gold and Persian Turquoise
Charles Robert Ashbee, 1902
Altered from its original design to include a different chain.
The Victoria & Albert Museum

I think this jewel by the celebrated C.R. Ashbee is quite smashing and lovely.  But, then, I typically like the work of Ashbee.  Charles Robert Ashbee was a multi-talented gent, known for his immense energy.  He served as a defining figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement.

In 1888, Ashbee founded the Guild of Handicraft in the East End of London.  His goal was to resurrect traditional craft skills and offer employment to residents of a deprived area of the city. While Ashbee was trained originally as an architect, he is better known also for his highly innovative furniture, metalwork, silver and jewelry designs.

Like many of this period, one of Ashbee's favorite motifs was the peacock and he is known to have designed about a dozen peacock jewels in the years around 1900. Here, we see one such example of these jewels.  In this instance, the bird is decorated with colorful enamels, and surmounts an uncut turquoise.  The use of unusual, uncut stones was a hallmark of the Arts and Crafts movement.  Three matching Persian turquoises are set in the chain.

Reverse.

The Home Beautiful: The Ashbee Silver Pin Tray, 1896



The Victoria & Albert Museum



Charles Robert Ashbee and his Guild of Handicraft, in the 1890s, started to design and produce silver tableware, notably bowls, dishes and decanters. Ashbee preferred simple elements and produced a line of hammered silver with fine, elegant embossed detail, adopting the aesthetic principles of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and focusing on items for use in daily life. Ashbee and his Guild took pride in hand-crafting their pieces as a reaction against the what they considered the overwrought wares produced by machines. Place of Origin

This pin tray by Ashbee comes from Essex House, England and was made between 1896 and 1897. The piece reflects Ashbee’s love of simple adornment and the influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement.

Ashbee and the Guild continued to produce pieces like this as the Nineteenth Century came to a close. In 1899, the Guild opened a shop on Bond Street in London and, in 1901, were granted a Royal Warrant as jewelers and silversmiths to the newly ascended Queen Alexandra.