Price range: Sold

For sale is this rather special silver and enamel box by William Thomas Blackband. Blackband was the pupil and then teaching assistant to Arthur Gaskin at Birmingham’s Vittoria Street School for Jewellers and Silversmiths,  succeeding Gaskin as Principal  from 1924-1946. Blackband exhibited widely at the leading exhibitions of the period and  is renowned for his fine jewellery, typically in the arts and crafts style.

This box illustrates the progression of his work to  a more modernist or deco style.  Like his jewellery, it is of fantastic quality with a very complex cloisonne enamel design to the lid and a good gauge of silver.

It is one of those rare pieces  that illustrates perfectly how the later arts and crafts silversmiths and jewellers (Blackband, Dunlop, Stabler, Murphy)  bridged from arts and crafts to deco to modernism, laying the foundation for post war modernist British silver.

Condition is excellent and original.  The lid is not perfectly fitting in all directions and there is some residual glue to the enamel edges that is probably not original but adding additional security to the plaque.

Maker:  William Thomas Blackband

Designer:  William Thomas Blackband

Date: 1940

Marks: WTB, Birmingham, q

Material: Silver, enamel

Condition: Excellent

Size: Diameter 12.5 cm, height 4.5 cm

Weight: 293 grams, 10.3 oz (inc enamel plaque)