{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1810748"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1810748/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2025PJ5448/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2025PJ5448/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2025PJ5448","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2026PN2776","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2026PN2775","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2026PN2773","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2026PN2774","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PJ5447","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O1810748/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1810748","accessionNumber":"M.2-2026","objectType":"Mustard pot and spoon","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"This is one of three pieces of table silver (a salt cellar, a pepper pot and a mustard pot and spoon) acquired by the Museum in 2026 that were used by the Arts and Crafts designer, Charles Robert Ashbee, in his own home. The pepper pot and mustard pot were designed by Ashbee and made by the Guild of Handicraft. The mustard pot is hallmarked for 1904, while the pepper pot is unmarked, possibly because it was never intended for sale and was for Ashbee's personal use. The salt cellar, hallmarked for 1901 and inscribed 1902, was made by Turnbull Brothers of Birmingham and is in Arts & Crafts style. The mustard spoon is a later replacement but is in keeping with the style of the original.\r\n\r\nThe table silver was passed down through Ashbee's daughter Prudence Margaret Ashbee (1917-1979), his third of four children with Janet Elizabeth Forbes (1877-1961). Prudence married the German painter Walter Nessler (1912-2001) and their son was the donor, Conrad (1939- 2025), who as a young child, took on the surname Marshall Purves after Prudence's second husband. Conrad died in 2025 and his will bequeathed the items to the V&A.\r\n","physicalDescription":"","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Ashbee, Charles Robert","id":"A8102"},"association":{"text":"designed","id":"x40048"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[{"name":{"text":"Guild of Handicraft","id":"A9111"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28690"},"note":""}],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"silver","id":"AAT11029"},{"text":"chrysoprase","id":"AAT11142"}],"techniques":[{"text":"raising","id":"AAT237068"},{"text":"chasing","id":"AAT54016"},{"text":"stone-setting","id":"x34787"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Silver, raised and chased, with detachable lid, the body set with chrysoprases","categories":[{"text":"Eating","id":"THES48963"},{"text":"Metalwork","id":"THES48920"},{"text":"Silver","id":"THES251836"},{"text":"Tableware and cutlery","id":"THES48888"}],"styles":[{"text":"Arts and Crafts (movement)","id":"AAT21205"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"MET","id":"THES48599"},"images":["2025PJ5448","2026PN2776","2026PN2775","2026PN2773","2026PN2774","2025PJ5447"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"CNMT","id":"THES49205"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"CNMT","id":"THES49205"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"CNMT","id":"THES49205"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Mustard pot","id":"AAT43021"}],[{"text":"Lid","id":"AAT45712"}],[{"text":"Spoon","id":"AAT43149"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"No","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Chipping Campden","id":"x33529"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":"Made for C.R. Ashbee's personal use. "}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1904","earliest":"1904-01-01","latest":"1904-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":"Hallmarked"}],"associatedObjects":[{"object":{"text":"M.1-2026","id":"O1810747"},"association":"Group"},{"object":{"text":"M.3-2026","id":"O1810746"},"association":"Group"}],"creditLine":"Bequeathed by Conrad Marshall Purves, grandson of C.R. Ashbee","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"4.7","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"08/01/2026","earliest":"2026-01-08","latest":"2026-01-08"},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"4.3","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"08/01/2026","earliest":"2026-01-08","latest":"2026-01-08"},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Diameter","value":"4.4","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"08/01/2026","earliest":"2026-01-08","latest":"2026-01-08"},"part":"lid","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"This is one of 3 pieces of table silver (a salt cellar, a pepper pot and a mustard pot and spoon) acquired by the Museum in 2026 that were used by the Arts and Crafts designer, Charles Robert Ashbee, in his own home. The pepper pot and mustard pot were designed by Ashbee and made by the Guild of Handicraft. The mustard pot is hallmarked for 1904, while the pepper pot is unmarked, possibly because it was never intended for sale and was for Ashbee's personal use. The salt cellar, hallmarked for 1901 and inscribed 1902, was made by Turnbull Brothers of Birmingham and is in Arts & Crafts style. The mustard spoon is a later replacement but is in keeping with the style of the original.\r\n\r\nThe pepper pot and mustard pot were made by the Guild of Handicraft soon after it moved to Chipping Campden and around the time Ashbee moved with his family to Broad Campden. The salt shaker was most likely bought by Ashbee to add to his table silver. The three pieces of table silver were passed down the family through Ashbee's daughter Prudence Margaret Ashbee (1917-1979), his third of four children with Janet Elizabeth Forbes (1877-1961). Prudence married the German painter Walter Nessler (1912-2001) and their son was the donor, Conrad (1939- 2025), who as a young child, took on the surname Marshall Purves after Prudence's second husband. Conrad died in 2025 and his will bequeathed the items to the V&A. \r\n\r\nAshbee produced multiple variations of the mustard pot and spoon, some with handles and some with varied chasing and stones. The pepper pot appears to be unique and no comparative examples have been found. Further research may reveal others. The salt shaker has no direct design connection to Ashbee as it was hallmarked for Turnbull Bros of Birmingham and may have been bought by him at the same time as the other pieces were made. However, Ashbee did occasionally outsource his designs (see the Painter-Stainers' Cup, 1901, V&A M.106-1966) and so further research may establish a more direct connection with Turnbull Brothers. \r\n\r\nThe pieces are therefore by the most significant of all British arts and crafts metalwork designers with the added seal of approval that they were made for his own personal use and have been passed down through only three generations of his family to the V&A.","historicalContext":"Charles Robert Ashbee (1863-1942) was a man of huge talent and energy and a key figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement. He is well-represented in the V&A collections. These pieces complement that material with the added significance that they were made for his Ashbee's personal use and have been bequeathed to us by his grandson. \r\n\r\nThe Museum has much material from Ashbee's London house, The Magpie & Stump in Chelsea, and it is possible to see from this how his aesthetic impacted all areas of his life. Ashbee had multiple homes and more research may establish which property this silver furnished. The date of manufacture suggests it was most likely used in his home in Chipping Campden and his later home in nearby Broad Campden. \r\n\r\nIn 1888 Ashbee founded the Guild of Handicraft in the East End of London with the intention of reviving traditional craft skills and providing satisfying employment in a deprived area of the city. Trained originally as an architect, he is known also for his highly innovative furniture, metalwork, silver and jewellery designs. In the late 1890s, the Guild designed and produced silver tableware, most notably bowls sometimes with enamelled lids, dishes and decanters that combined a hammered finish to suggest traditional manufacturing along with handles of upwardly curving sweeping form similar to contemporary art nouveau styles. Ashbee worked with a few simple elements, setting coloured stones, in this case chrysoprases, in an austere, restrained manner.\r\n\r\nIn 1902, Ashbee re-established the Guild in Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire, taking 150 people including guildsmen and their families with him. Influenced by the socialist ideals of Ruskin and Morris, Ashbee intended the Guild to be a co-operative venture which would encourage the full creative potential of the craftspeople especially in silver and copper work and enamels. The Guild sought to promote a natural and ethical approach towards craftsmanship. They adopted the aesthetic principles of the Arts and Crafts Movement in which creativity was integrated into daily life through the works of art and household goods around us. Their social orientation was towards equality and co-operation beyond the workshop. Profits were shared and communal activities such as sport and music making were encouraged.\r\n\r\nAshbee and his Guild reacted primarily against mechanical, highly-finished silver products manufactured on production lines in large scale factories. He attempted to re-assert the role of the individual craftsmen who could see the creation of an item through from start to finish, even if this strayed into the realms of fantasy. Hammer marks are clearly visible on the surface of these pieces; a deliberate finish to emphasise that it was hand made.\r\n\r\nThe silver in this acquisition perfectly expresses the distinctive and mature style of the Guild at this time. Softly planished surfaces decorated with chasing and embossing were characteristic of Ashbee's designs and had a significant effect on contemporary silver in Europe and America as well as Britain. Mounted stones and enamels were frequently added not just for richness but to complement softly the subtle tones of the silver. Both the pepper pot and mustard pot are mounted with chrysoprase in characteristic Ashbee fashion.\r\n\r\nIn 1907 when the Guild was wound up through insolvency but its descendent company Harts and the Court Barn Museum in Chipping Campden maintain his legacy today.","briefDescription":"Mustard pot and spoon, silver, set with chrysoprases, designed by C.R. Ashbee and made by the Guild of Handicraft, hallmarked for 1904.","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"C.R. Ashbee, 'Modern English Silverwork', An essay by C.R. Ashbee, together with a series of designs by the author drawn upon a hundred separate lithograph plates and coloured by hand with a descriptive index, a new edition with introductory essays by Alan Crawford and Shirley Bury, Ben Weinreb, London, 1974, Pl. 38 (pepper pot illustrated). (Originally published by the Essex House Press, London, 1909)."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Alan Crawford, 'C.R. Ashbee Architect, Designer & Romantic Socialist', New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1985. ISBN: 0-300-03467-9"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Annette Carruthers, 'Ashbee to Wilson: Aesthetic Movement, Arts and Crafts, and Twentieth Century', The Hull Grundy Gift to the Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museums, Part 2, 1986"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Alan Crawford and Fiona MacCarthy, 'C.R. Ashbee and the Guild of Handicraft', catalogue of an exhibition organised by Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum, 17 January to 28 February 1981"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Felicity Ashbee, 'Janet Ashbee: Love, Marriage, and the Arts & Crafts Movement', Syracuse University Press, New York, 1984"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Shirley Bury, 'An Arts and Crafts Experiment: The Silverwork of C.R. Ashbee', Victoria and Albert Museum Bulletin Reprint 7, reprinted from the Bulletin, Vol. III, No. I, London, January 1967, pp. 18-25"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Fiona MacCarthy, 'The Simple Life: C.R. Ashbee in the Cotswolds', Lund Humphries, London, 1981"}],"production":"The spoon is a later replacement","productionType":{"text":"Limited edition","id":"THES48862"},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[{"text":"Chipping Campden","id":"x33529"}],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[{"text":"Guild of Handicraft","id":"A9048"}],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["M.2-2026","M.2:1-2026","M.2:2-2026"],"accessionNumberNum":"2","accessionNumberPrefix":"M","accessionYear":2026,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-04-14","recordCreationDate":"2025-10-13","availableToBook":false}}