A very rare and unrecorded Edwardian pewter Art Nouveau vase dated 1901 by Gilbert Marks

Of waisted cylindrical form, decorated in the art and crafts style with stylised organic floral forms of a rose buds on stem against a planished ground. signed ‘Gilbert Marks 1901’ to base alongside stem.

Height – 22 cm / 8.8 inches

Weight – 515 grams / 16.58 ozt

Gilbert Marks (1861 – 1905), was an important art nouveau silversmith. In 1901, the gallery space Johnson, Walker and Tolhurst established The Quest Gallery, this would prove to be an important exhibition space for marks in what would be the last years of his life. Having exhibited at the Royal Academy and the Fine Art Society his known oeuvre of around 800 silver objects exhibits the fluidity and organic excellence for which his work is renown.

Exceedingly little of his work is known in pewter, the present example forming an addition to the short list of items.

A charger, also of 1901, was sold at Bonhams, Knightsbridge 7th October 2015 Lot 313 and is now in the collection of the Worshipful Company of Pewterers.

Other examples of pewter chargers, all dated 1899, have been offered before at Christies South Kensington on; 1st December 2005 Lot 113, 30th November 2010 Lot 437, 16th February 1994 Lot 4.

Four further items of pewter by Marks, with dates between 1900-02, are held within The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

It appears as though the pewter examples are not performers to works made in silver, for in an Interview that Marks gave to the The Artist in 1898 he stated the importance of using the, “best capabilities both of the metal and the workman-designer. For this reason I do the designs myself, and never produce a duplicate. No dies or machinery are used and so the artist’s fancy is at work upon the subject in hand from the moment when the design is first conceived to the time when the last detail has been wrought in the metal.”