Archibald Knox was born on the Isle of Man, Douglas, April 1869.  He was the fifth son of Scottish parents, who moved to the Isle of Man in around 1840. Knox studied art at the Douglas School of Art.  The School followed the same curriculum as the more famous Glasgow School of Art that was at the heart of the modern movement from 1890.  Knox was the star pupil of the School and, as whilst his fame today is very much as a designer for Liberty, he was always foremostly an artist and art teacher. To understand Knox you have to understand the Isle of Man.  It is a small island in the Irish sea set between Scotland and Ireland.  Its heritage is ancient, having been inhabited by the Celts in the Bronze age from around [...]

Objectives This may seem like an obvious question, but before polishing any of your silver, consider what are your objectives in polishing and what do you want the final piece to look like? One person’s aesthetic can differ from another’s, and how far you polish your silver can dramatically alter the appearance of your piece. Whilst this is subjective, for arts and craft silver I would personally say do not over polish. You really do not want a modern shiny mirror like finish. I like a nice almost grey patina. Patina is not tarnish, it arises from the use of the silver over decades and centuries, forming tiny micro scratches on the silver that dull the surface. In my view you want to retain this through any polishing process. Each time a piece of silver [...]

When I first started out as a dealer in antique silver, without doubt the hardest aspect of my new career was photography. I tried using professional photographers but they were expensive, involved frustrating delays and ultimately took photos that I was not very happy with. It turns out photographing silver is just about the hardest thing to do in the world of photography. It requires a specialist professional photographer – not easy to find. It is not just the myriad of reflections you have to deal with, but getting silver to look like clean shiny silver in a photograph is in fact very tricky. Over the past five years I have crawled up, as well as down, the learning curve. I have reached the point where I am finally satisfied with most of my photographs. By [...]