Silver & Silver-plated items

As this year commemorates VE and VJ days, there are likely to be even more collectors and dealers than usual converging on the first of 2025’s biannual Britannia Medal Fairs on Sunday, May 11.

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days, including works by Stuart Devlin being consigned to auction by the late designer’s widow.

As a token of their appreciation for his work as administrator of the region around the German town of Geldern, a few miles from the Dutch border, 16 mayors from local towns presented the Prussian politician and bureaucrat Georg von Eerde with a monumental silver centrepiece.

Archibald Knox (1864-1933) is known today as the genius behind the Cymric and Tudric ranges sold by Liberty & Co in the early 20th century.

When Anthony Bernbaum curated the exhibition Archibald Knox, Beauty and Modernity, a Designer Ahead of his Time at the Olympia International Art & Antiques Fair in 2014, he was working in investment banking.

A closer look at the post-war appreciation of the great designer including exhibitions and auction landmarks

A fine example of early 18th century Ottoman metalwork sold for many times its estimate at Stockholms Auktionsverk (20% buyer’s premium) on February 20.

Dr Stephen Martin first encountered Archibald Knox in a New York bookstore in 1990.

Created shortly after the 1830 Revolution, when Louis Philippe ruled as ‘king of the French’, the ‘Service de la Chevalerie’ was a great example of romantic historicism.

Aesthetic Movement designers and artists were in thrall to the peacock and its extravagant plumage.

These two silver lots bear the mark of Henry George Murphy (1884-1939), whose Falcon Studio produced some of the finest English silver of the inter-war era.

New Zealand-born architect Keith Murray (1892-1981) began to make designs for Wedgwood on a commercial basis in 1933, joining a stable of designers that included Daisy Makeig-Jones and John Skeaping.

The sale at Bellmans (25% buyer’s premium) in Billingshurst, West Sussex on February 17 included a small silver gilt rococo-style cream jug of a type that remains something of an enigma.

A Georgian silver coffee pot that once formed part of the silver at the White House has emerged for sale in Gloucestershire.

A Renaissance gilt bronze medal made to mark the marriage of Queen Mary I (1516-58) and King Philip II (1527-98) sold for £15,500 at Sloane Street Auctions (26.5% buyer’s premium).

Since the 16th century, silversmiths in Germany have produced so-called Brautbecher (bridal beakers), a tradition that still exists today.