SARAH JONES
salt cellar in fact do not have traditional feet, but those of ducks, while their small spoons terminate with the bird’s head. Then there are salts without feet where playful dolphins encircle the rim and the terminal of the spoon is a smaller version of the fish. Her repertoire over the years has included the Alberich and Mime,5 Mermaid, Birdbath, Fish Knop and Chinese Fish salt cellars. It was at ‘Loot’ that she launched what has proved to be a very popular range: small silver-rimmed glass vases filled with bunches of silver/silver-gilt and enamel flowers.6 As a result of the ‘Loot’ exhibitions she received orders for 250. Over the years these have included bunches of flax, harebells, violets, gentians, dandelions, daisies, buttercups, cranesbill and daffodils. The buttercups incorporate a bee, the daisies a wasp. These are very reminiscent of Fabergé’s flower studies. Indeed, one of Sarah’s was considered an appropriate gift to HM Queen Elizabeth II when she visited Goldsmiths’ Hall in 1979 as she has the world’s largest collection of Fabergé flowers. Sarah’s creation for the Queen features a rose, thistle, daffodil and a shamrock, the national flowers respectively of England, Scotland,
5. The chief dwarfs in Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). 6. The flowers are part-cast and saw-pierced. 7. After the Millennium, a number of large financial institutions have moved their HQs east of the City to the old docklands area at Canary Wharf. 8. She obtained a licence from Disney for a series of Winnie the Pooh characters including Pooh and Honeypot, Piglet with Violets, Eeyore and Tigger. There were also four characters from Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows: Badger, Mole, Ratty and Toad. Edward Lear’s nonsense poem was also captured with a miniature of the Owl and the Pussycat in their boat.
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Wales and Northern Ireland, the constituents of the United Kingdom. It is understood that Her Majesty keeps this gift on her dressing table. The Company commissioned a replica for its collection. Although Sarah had cast her net wider by exhibiting annually at ‘Loot’, she was now effectively catering for two separate markets. ‘With the roaring inflation of the 1970s, my Camden Lock Market customers were seeking smaller, less expensive items, while I really wanted to make some larger pieces. So, I decided to open a shop.’
Above: Duck Salt Cellars Courtesy Styles Silver, photographer Michael Pilkington This pair of salts are typical of Sarah’s work – they are whimsical. The webbed feet and the duck’s head terminals to the spoons bring a smile to those that see them. A stock item for many years, in 1993 these retailed at £1,150 a pair. Length of spoons 7cm. London 1986. Opposite: Bee and Buttercups Courtesy Pearson Silver Collection, photographer Bill Burnett Sarah’s flower studies may not be in the same league as Fabergé’s, but they are nevertheless charming. Indeed, one featuring the national flowers of the three countries that comprise Great Britain was considered an appropriate gift when the Queen visited Goldsmiths’ Hall in 1979. It is understood that Her Majesty displays it on her dressing table. This example of buttercups with a bee hovering on one of the flower heads was purchased at a provincial auction in 2008 for a few pence over £195 including all auction costs and shipping. Another example sold at Bonhams Post-war Silver sale in May 2010 for a couple of pounds over £800. Height 10cm. London 1982.
Of the London-based silversmiths working during the final four decades of the 20th century, less than a handful have had street-facing retail outlets in the capital. She chose the City of London or the ‘Square Mile’ as London’s financial district is called,7 as the location for this venture. The shop opened in 1980 at 14 Basinghall Street beside the Guildhall and a stone’s throw from the Bank of England. Her landlord was the Company and her customers were bankers, stock, commodity and insurance brokers, currency and other dealers, secretaries, clerks and other office workers. Although not on a main thoroughfare, the shop was well positioned in the heart of the City and was spacious with large windows on two aspects. The stock ranged from gold and silver jewellery (including cufflinks for men) to candlesticks, from models of animals and characters8 to
water jugs. Her series of dogs are exquisitely modelled and include an American cocker spaniel, bulldog, cocker spaniel, corgi, fox terrier, King Charles spaniel, Labrador, long-haired dachshund, retriever, small dachshund, springer spaniel, Staffordshire bull terrier, and West Highland terrier. The menagerie of animals was far more extensive than canines, with felines, ponies and everything from mice to elephants. ‘During the nineties I put on a series of exhibitions based on English sayings, which were hugely successful. There were around 200 pieces in all. Most were one-offs, but the more popular ones became stock items such as the “Drinking like a Fish” goblet which I still make.’ This is a clever design, the bowl being supported by a fish holding a wine goblet, there being two empty wine 269