The Arts and Crafts Movement celebrated the maker, traditional craft skills and good materials. Many designers believed in working together with their employees in small workshops, and were committed to using local, sustainable materials and techniques. Traditional craft skills were revived and new techniques developed.
The Movement’s philosophy was based on ‘doing not designing’. The making process was particularly important to establish high standards of workmanship and to provide creative, fulfilling work.
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Much Arts and Crafts jewellery was made in silver using simple techniques including plain collar settings, twisted wires, and cast flower designs. This brooch by Arthur and Georgie Gaskin dates from about 1911. It has applied silver wire stems and flowers, enamelled leaves and is set with a pearl and four amethysts.
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Muffin dish in silver plate by C R Ashbee and the Guild of Handicraft, about 1900. The most influential Guild pieces were cups, bowls and dishes made from hammered and bent silver sheet metal and wire. They were left with a light surface texture to indicate that they were made by hand.
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Necklace designed by C R Ashbee and made by the Guild of Handicraft about 1902. Arts & Crafts designers used stones such as this mother of pearl pendant chosen for their colour, shape and texture rather than their intrinsic value. The pendant and four smaller chrysoprases are all cabochon-cut: they have a rounded rather than the more traditional facet-cut surface. Note also Ashbee's use of wirework which relates to his silver designs.
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Ideas about truth to materials and open construction work were important to Ernest Gimson and many Arts and Crafts designer-makers. This coffer was designed by Gimson and made in the Daneway workshop in about 1910. Quartered planks of oak were used to achieve the decorative grain effects on the dowelled lid. Note the way the coffer is joined with cogged dovetails at the corners. Double dovetails or butterfly joints join the planks on the two ends.
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This copper plaque was made by John Pearson in about 1900. The boldness of this type of hammered and chased work in brass and copper made an immediate impact when it was exhibited. It was also relatively easy to do, so it was readily adapted to amateur work
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Vase in thrown salt-glazed stoneware with incised and applied relief decoration probably by Edwin Martin, 1893. The Martin Brothers were one of the few small-scale designer-makers in the early Arts & Crafts period. Their interest in working with clay, using incised, applied and modelled decoration, relates to the studio pottery movement in the 20th century.
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Winchcombe Pottery dish, about 1930, designed and decorated by Michael Cardew with a wavy line which has become known as the 'Winchcombe' pattern. The earthenware was thrown as a circle by Elijah Comfort then reshaped by cutting out a leaf-shaped piece of clay and pressing the sides together to form an oval dish.
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Candleholder cast in silver plate designed by W A S Benson in about 1900. Much Arts and Crafts metalwork was intended for mass production. Such small domestic pieces including hooks and handles were cast from prototypes and left with a polished finish.
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Many Arts and Crafts designers including William De Morgan experimented with painted decoration or glaze effects often on commercially-produced pottery blanks. This earthenware dish was probably supplied as a blank to De Morgan's workshop by the Hanley firm of Davis. It was painted with copper lustre over a white slip in about 1880.
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Detail of two brass sconces designed by Ernest Gimson in 1906. The cut and chased decoration was relatively straightforward to do. The one on the left was made by Alfred Bucknell in 1919, the one on the right by his son, Norman in about 1930-9. Subsequently Norman Bucknell was unsure whether he had been right to refine and reduce the bold chasing used by his father on the earlier sconce.
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Decoration on Arts and Crafts furniture was often based on carpentry techniques: gouged work, chamfering and chip-carving. This dining table in oak was designed and made by Sidney Barnsley in 1923-4. The chamfered design of the stretcher is based on the hay rake. It has been made in three pieces, shaped using a draw knife and joined with dowels and tenons. There are lines of lozenge-shaped chip-carved decoration round the edge of the table top and down its legs.
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Many Arts and Crafts designers produced rush-seated chairs. This elegant version was designed by C F A Voysey in 1898 and made in oak probably by C H B Quennell. Voysey's use of strong vertical lines and heart-shaped cut-outs were much copied.
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