Arts & Crafts Copper Charger C.1900

Large Arts & Crafts repousse copper charger c.1900. 19" diameter with a dished centre surrounded by broad band of beautifully worked decoration featuring eight repeats of a tree of life design. Believed to the work of the Yattendon Class after a design by Elizabeth Waterhouse. With an ink signature on the rear. Some minor creases to the edges, otherwise excellent condition.

From the website of the Victorian & Albert Museum:
The Yattendon Metalworking class was started in 1890 as an evening class for local men and boys by Elizabeth Waterhouse (1834-1918), the wife of the architect Alfred Waterhouse whose buildings include the Natural History Museum in London. The Waterhouse family purchased the Yattendon estate in West Berkshire in 1878, and Alfred built Yattendon Court (now demolished) as their family home.

Between 1890 and 1914, the class met weekly at Yattendon Court and developed into a thriving village industry. The class produced items in repoussé brass and copper mostly from Elizabeth’s own designs. She also taught her pupils how to beat the copper and brass. Copper was found to be much easier to work with and therefore only the very early work is in brass. The men worked once a week in the evening from 7pm until 9.30 or 10, the older teaching the younger. The designs were almost all made by Mrs Waterhouse using garden plants and foliage for inspiration. All the materials were provided by her and the workmen received payment for each piece as it was sold.

The class became affiliated to the Home Arts and Industries Association (HAIA) which was established in 1884 to increase skills in craftsmanship among the working classes and to promote the revival of rural craft industries. Similar metalwork classes were set up in Newlyn in Cornwall and in Keswick in the Lake District.
The Yattendon Class established a reputation for good design, and produced items including plates, jugs and lanterns in an Arts and Crafts style. The decorative motifs were inspired by plants and flowers, whilst others featured peacocks, fish, deer and leopards. The class produced over 5,000 items and sold their wares in a local shop, whilst other items were sold at Liberty’s in London. The classwork was also exhibited at the Home Arts and Industries Exhibition at the Royal Albert Hall.As the work of the class became known some special commissions were executed - among them some ecclesiastical works such as font covers. The class was disbanded in 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War.

In 1895 the art and design journal The Studio praised the Yattendon Guild’s “fine show of repoussé copper, excellent in its design and thoroughly characteristic of the metal”.