Tag Archive | my Etsy shop

She sells sea shells

I love learning new things. I had a prospective customer contact me recently about an Art Deco abalone and mother of pearl brooch for sale in my Etsy shop. She mentioned it would pair nicely with her maireener necklaces in the same colours. I’d never come across the word maireener before, so scurried off to google for a quick search, and learned it is a type of sea shell found only in Australia, is also known as the rainbow kelp shell, and has been used by Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples in their jewellery for millennia. Aunty Dulcie Greeno is an Aboriginal woman living in Launceston in Tasmania, and she continues the tradition, making beautiful necklaces which she sells. She travels twice a year to the Furneaux Islands, where she was born, to collect the shells.

A maireener (rainbow kelp shell) necklace by Aunt Dulcie.

A maireener (rainbow kelp shell) necklace by Aunty Dulcie Greeno. Simply gorgeous!

I find shell jewellery so attractive, and I’m guessing other people do too as it accounts for a good proportion of my sales so far. I have already sold a stunning Arts and Crafts abalone brooch attributed to Scottish jeweller Mary Thew, and a small abalone and silver brooch with a triangular motif. I have a couple more still for sale—my favourite of all my pieces is an Art Nouveau abalone and silver brooch, and I also have the funky Art Deco brooch mentioned above, and a Mexican abalone and silver pendant and chain.

There’s something about the iridescent peacock colours of abalone I find absolutely irresistible—the opals of the sea! Or as my prospective customer so eloquently put it: ‘Excellent elegant mermaid wear’.

Arts and Crafts abalone and silver brooch, attributed to Scottish jeweller Mary Thew (NOW SOLD).

Detail of the abalone plaque

Silver and abalone brooch (NOW SOLD).

Stunning Art Nouveau abalone and silver brooch, for sale at Inglenookery. (NOW SOLD).

Art Deco abalone and mother of pearl brooch, for sale at Inglenookery. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage Mexican sterling silver and abalone pendant and chain, for sale at Inglenookery. (NOW SOLD).

Orange!

Jun8

In an earlier post I mentioned that orange is my favourite colour. I love colour—the brighter the better, and for me, orange is the best of all. It’s sunshine and happiness in a colour. It’s hard to be grumpy when there’s orange around.

Orange in my garden (and a couple of others):

Meconopsis cambrica (orange Welsh poppy) in our garden. It’s a lot more orangey and less yellowy in real life than this photo suggests – a sort of pale tangerine colour.

Lathyrus aureus, This one's my baby - I grew it from seed.

Lathyrus aureus, a low-growing perennial member of the pea family. This one’s my special baby – I grew it from seed.

Buddleja globosa in our garden. This flowers earlier than the common buddleja (B. davidii) and it’s so unusual: lovely globby, bobbly flowers.

Buddleja globosa. This flowers earlier than the common buddleja (B. davidii) and it's so unusual: lovely globby flowers. And they just had to go in an orange jug!

And they just had to go in an orange jug!

Clivia miniata. I put these out for the summer but they have to come inside for the winter before the first frosts. They need to be in a shady spot as the sun can burn their leaves badly. The seed pods are so pretty too, and clivias are easy to grow from seed.

Crocosmia × crocosmiiflora ‘Star of the East’ with a few orange Tropaeolum majus (nasturtiums) in a garden I designed in Berkshire.

Erysimum (wallflowers) and lily-flowered tulips (possibly Tulipa ‘Ballerina’) at Lytes Cary in Somerset, a wonderful National Trust property.

And recently I realised I’d been buying an awful lot of orange and reddy-orange things for my shop on Etsy:

Baltic amber and 800 silver ring by Wilhelm Becker of Pforzheim, Germany. (NOW SOLD).

Baltic amber and sterling silver ring, by Niels Erik From of Denmark. (NOW SOLD).

Art Nouveau style Baltic amber and silver ring. (NOW SOLD).

Art Deco carnelian and silver lavalier necklace. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage carnelian agate big bead necklace. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage Art Deco carnelian glass lavalier necklace. (NOW SOLD).

Art Deco glass necklace, probably Czech glass. (NOW SOLD).

Victorian banded agate brooch. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage faux amber and 830 silver flower brooch, possibly Danish. (NOW SOLD).

So then I had to go on a blues and greens and purples and pinks buying spree—such hardship!

Bernard Instone: Arts and Crafts jeweller

May27

Bernard Instone (1891—1987) is a highly regarded and very collectable jeweller, designer and silversmith of the later British Arts and Crafts movement. I am delighted and very fortunate to have a rare Bernard Instone ring for sale in my Etsy shop.

Instone was born in Kings Norton in Birmingham, and his artistic talent was apparent from a very early age. He was only twelve years old when he won a scholarship to the Birmingham School of Jewellery at Vittoria Street, part of the Birmingham School of Art, where he studied under renowned Arts and Crafts jeweller Arthur Gaskin and learned silversmithing from 1904—1912.

Bernard Instone turquoise crescent brooch, late English Arts and Crafts jewellery. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photo for details.

Carnelian, sterling silver and 9 carat gold pendant by Bernard Instone. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photo for details.

Bernard Instone. Arts and Crafts brooch. Silver, amethyst and citrine. Diameter: 4.1 cm (1.6 in). English, c. 1930. Sold by Tadema Gallery. Note the hand-tooled narrow silver leaves, so characteristic of his work.

After leaving the School, Instone worked for a while for another renowned jeweller and craftsman, John Paul Cooper, in his Westerham studio, and then studied in Berlin under Emil Lettre, Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Court goldsmith. In October 1913 he was back in England, and began part-time teaching at Vittoria Street. As well as making pieces for the Gaskins and Bernard Cuzner and other teachers at the school, he also made his first commissions at this time. In 1920 he set up his own jewellers and silversmith works—Langstone Silver Works—in Digbeth in Birmingham. The company worked from there until 1954 when it moved to Lode Lane in Solihull.

Silver and moonstone earrings by Bernard Instone, sold by Tadema Gallery.

Silver and moonstone earrings by Bernard Instone c. 1930, sold by Tadema Gallery.

As well as making his own designs, Instone produced jewellery for other jewellers, such as Sibyl Dunlop: a family website about Instone records “he visited [Dunlop] every Friday at her shop in Kensington, supplying her with made up designs already marked up with the SD mark ready for the retail market and [in the] 1940s Liberty became a customer after 25 years of trying to sell to them.” His two sons came to work in the business, and Instone retired in 1963 to the Cotswolds, where he died in 1987.

Instone was strongly inspired by nature, and floral themes occur in most of his pieces. His jewellery can be roughly divided into two types: that with enamel, and that without.

Citrine and silver necklace by Bernard Instone. For sale at Tadema Gallery.

His finest and showiest pieces belong to the latter category: fantastic brooches, rings, necklaces, bracelets, dress clips and earrings with semi-precious stones and sometimes pearls in intricate silver mounts, often with detailed hand-tooled foliage and scrolls. One of his trademark designs are long, fine handmade silver leaves with hand-tooled veins. His favourite stones to use were citrines and amethysts.

Silver, amethyst and peridot bracelet by Bernard Instone. Sold by Van Den Bosch.

The enamel pieces commonly have a floral theme, with leaves and multicoloured flowers often in sugary pastel colours, all picked out in enamel and sometime embellished with marcasites.

Bernard Instone enamel brooch. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

Another Bernard Instone enamel brooch in a different colourway. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on link for details.

Enamel floral brooch by Bernard Instone, in the collections of the V&A Museum.

Instone sometimes signed his work ‘BI’ and ‘SILVER’, but just as often did not sign his work at all. His style is so distinctive it is easy to spot an Instone once you have got your eye in, though! (I recently saw a fabulous Instone silver and amethyst crescent brooch on eBay which was described by the seller as Victorian. It positively screams Instone! Sadly my pockets weren’t deep enough to buy it.)

Instone’s pieces were very popular during his lifetime and have become increasingly collectable. His work is held in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and is sold by London galleries such as Van Den Bosch and Tadema Gallery: the Instone jewellery in the archive sections of their websites is well worth a look.

I am so happy to be able to offer a rare Bernard Instone moonstone and silver ring in my Etsy shop. A near-identical ring was sold by Tadema Gallery (photos here, scroll down a bit and here, in high resolution). The ring has Instone’s famous handmade silver leaves on either side of the stone. It dates from c. 1930.

Bernard Instone moonstone and silver ring, for sale at my Etsy shop. (NOW SOLD).

Click on the following photos to enlarge:

Okay I went a bit mad with the photos, but Etsy only allows you five and it is so pretty I wanted to show it off properly!

Update February 2015: The ring has now sold. Sorry!

UPDATE July 2016: I briefly had a rare early Bernard Instone brooch for sale in my Etsy shop, but it sold in under 24 hours. Sorry!

Early Bernard Instone brooch. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

Tiny, tinier, tiniest

May26

I’m not quite sure how or why this happened, but recently I seem to have been accumulating tiny pieces of jewellery in my Etsy shop. First up was a pretty Edwardian brooch with Persian turquoises, which is a squitchy 23 mm (9/10 inch) across its widest point.

Tiny Edwardian Persian turquoise and silver brooch. (NOW SOLD).

Just recently I bought an even tinier brooch: a pretty little sterling silver pin with an Art Nouveau design of leaves and a daisy-like flower. It measures 18 mm (7/10 inch) across by 12 mm (just under 1/2 inch) high. (Update: a kind lady on Etsy has since told me it’s a letter ‘C’ brooch – which of course it is! I wondered why it had that strange cut-off ‘top’ edge …. Turn it through 90 degrees and suddenly it makes sense. As Homer Simpson would say, ‘Doh!’. She also thinks it’s by Ortak, the jewellery makers up in the Orkney Isles in the far north of Scotland.)

Vintage tiny William Morris design sterling silver brooch forming a letter ‘C’, and made by Ortak in the 1970s. (NOW SOLD).

But the titchiest of all are the sweet little Hroar Prydz enamel and silver butterfly earrings I bought a few weeks ago. These little Norwegian beauties are so wee: each butterfly measures just 15 mm (6/10 inch) across at its widest part. Considering their size, the level of detailing in them is amazing.

Hroar Prydz enamel and silver butterfly earrings. (NOW SOLD).

I wonder if it’s something to do with having watched the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage the other day? I love that film!

Danish daisy jewellery: decorative resistance

May23

Enamel daisy brooch by the Royal Jeweller to the Danish court, Anton Michelsen. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

On 16 April 1940, Princess Margrethe of Denmark was born. She was born in troubled times. A mere seven days before her birth, her country had been invaded by Nazi Germany.

To celebrate the Princess’s birth, jewellers in Denmark produced daisy jewellery: ‘marguerit’ is the Danish for daisy, so this made a nice play on her name. Daisy jewellery was produced in various forms, including brooches, pendants, bracelets, earrings and necklaces, all in gold-washed sterling silver and white enamel. It became immediately popular, not just as a mark of respect for the monarchy but also, and perhaps more importantly, as a symbol of national resistance against the Nazis. To wear a piece of daisy jewellery was to give a tacit ‘up yours’ to the occupying forces.

Anton Michelsen daisy clip on earrings For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

Danish white enamel daisy ring. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

Anton Michelsen daisy bar brooch, for sale at Inglenookery.

Anton Michelsen daisy bar brooch, rare, for sale at Inglenookery on Etsy. Perhaps one of the prettiest possible forms of passive resistance? (NOW SOLD).

The daisy jewellery was initially made by several firms of silversmiths in Denmark, with that of Anton Michelsen (1809-1877) being the most famous. The firm that bore Michelsen’s name was founded in 1841 and by 1848 Michelsen had become the Jeweller to the Royal Danish Court. The firm was based in Copenhagen. Other firms making daisy jewellery in the wartime period included Viggo Pedersen and Bernhard Hertz. Those making them shortly after the war included Hans Hansen and Aarre & Krogh Eftf.

Aarre Krogh & Eftf daisy clip on earrings, for sale at Inglenookery on Etsy. (NOW SOLD).

The earliest daisy brooches fasten with a ‘C’ catch or a safety pin-type catch (rollover catches were used on the later brooches). The first pieces of jewellery were produced for domestic consumption only so were generally marked just with ‘925 S’ (referring to the silver purity of 925 parts per 1000, ie sterling silver), whereas the later ones also had ‘DENMARK’ and/or ‘STERLING’, indicating they were intended for the international as well as the domestic market.

Anton Michelsen three daisy brooch, sold by Inglenookery on Etsy. (NOW SOLD).

Large daisy clipon earrings by Anton Michelsen. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

Daisy jewellery was so popular and struck such a chord with Danes that it was made through the postwar period and continues to be made to this day. The famous silversmith company of Georg Jensen later took over the firm of A. Michelsen, and continued to make daisy jewellery. Recently they have produced jewellery based on the earliest Michelsen designs.

Although Denmark does not have an official floral emblem, in 1980 the daisy won an unofficial competition and was voted the ‘unofficial official’ flower of Denmark, no doubt in part because of the fondness the Danes have towards this flower and all it represents.

And little Princess Margrethe, who was born as Nazi tanks rolled across her country? She ascended the Danish throne in 1972 and as Queen Margrethe II, still rules today as the sovereign of Denmark.

So to wear or own an item of Danish daisy jewellery is to possess not only a beautiful piece of personal adornment, but also a moving little piece of history.

Daisies (Bellis perennis) growing in Wiltshire, may 2013.

Daisies (Bellis perennis) growing in Wiltshire, May 2014.

Anton Michelsen daisy brooch, for sale at Inglenookery on Etsy. (NOW SOLD).