A fine Guild of Handicraft silver and enamel peacock brooch designed by Charles Robert Ashbee

A fine Guild of Handicraft silver and enamel peacock brooch designed by Charles Robert Ashbee, wirework feathers with enamelled blue and green eyes, set on mother of pearl shell back, the bird set with demantoid garnet eye, holding a mother of pearl drop, stamped marks to side and back, GofH Ltd mark, London 1907, 7.5cm. high

Provenance

Duke's Auctioneers 27th April 2006 lot 820

Private collection

Literature

Modern Design in Jewellery and Fans, The Studio Special, 1901-1902, plate 20 for a comparable peacock brooch by C.R. Ashbee illustrated.

Alan Crawford C.R. Ashbee Architect, Designer and Romantic Socialist, Yale, page 360 plate 178 for a variation of the Peacock design.

Michael Jeffery Christie's Arts and Crafts Style, Pavilion, page 159 for another example of a Guild of Handicraft peacock brooch illustrated.

Catalogue notes.

This example is probably number 10, dated 1907, listed by Alan Crawford in C.R Ashbee Architect Designer and Romantic Socialist (page 456 footnote number 55 in a private collection). The Peacock, along with the galleon was one of Ashbee's favourite subjects and he used as the basis for some dozen individual brooches in the early 1900s. he wrote 'I hold the Peacock a most fitting symbol of the Arts and Crafts. It started with a splendid tail, all eyes and pride but that the tail subsequently came off in fireworks. However too the peacock is a symbol of the resurrection'.

The Poor Peacock of the Arts and Crafts with his proud tail exploding in fireworks, Charles Robert Ashbee, 1892.