Jewellery, Watches, Antiquities and Objects of Vertu

An enamel and gem set pendant, attributed to Alexander Fisher, the oval pendant decorated with polychrome painted enamel, depicting a maiden in green flowing robes to the front, a tree to the reverse (both damaged), the mount with ropetwist and bead detail, suspending a cabochon ruby drop below (detached), to a ropetwist chain and scrollwork panel swag necklace with further cabochon ruby accent, enamel panels measures 32 x 21mm. £400-£600

Alexander Fisher (1864 – 1936) was an English silversmith and painter, and one of the foremost enamelists of the Arts and Crafts movement in London. He was a teacher at the Slade School of Art, and the author of ‘The art of enamelling upon metal: with a short appendix concerning miniature painting on enamel’, published in 1909. As an enamelist, he was interested in reviving the methods of the Limoges school of enamelling, travelling to France to learn their enamelling techniques. On his return, he set up a studio in London and took on pupils, including Ernestine Mills.
The Decorative Arts dealer Van den Bosch describes Fisher as “almost solely responsible for the re-establishment of enamelwork as an important element of British Decorative Arts metal design”.

Alexander Fisher wrote “When one watches the fire-flame leaping round the crucible in the enameller’s furnace, caressing the inert mass of silica and lead, giving it its own life and brilliancy, one’s thoughts revert to that great furnace of nature below us, which gives the black carbon its white gleam and makes the diamond,“with all the beauty that we worship in a star.” And so the enameller, watching over his little fire, unconsciously fulfilling like laws and methods common to the universe, in earth and sun and stars, gives the world an array of colours that is matchless in the realms of art”.

The necklace was once the possession of Sister Alice LeDan who served in WW1 accompanying wounded soldiers from the battle grounds and in 1920 left England for Australia, aboard the S.S. Bahia Castillo. She gifted the piece to a family friend and thence by descent.