In April The Goldsmiths’ Company will be underscoring that interest and highlighting the close links between goldsmiths and the church over the centuries when it presents Silver and the Church – Treasures from London Churches at Goldsmiths’ Hall. The loan exhibition celebrates the 14th centenary of the foundation of St Paul’s Cathedral and the reorganisation of the Diocese of London, with pieces sourced from the capital’s ecclesiastical buildings, from small parish churches to St Paul’s itself. There are pieces from the medieval period, the 17th and 18th centuries, Gothic Revival works like the crosier pictured here, right through to the present day. Many of them are rarely seen in public.
Especially reunited for this exhibition is a group of 18th century church plate that was bequeathed to St Martin-in-the-Fields by a wealthy parishioner and sold in the 1970s.
The Gilbert Collection has lent a pair of flagons from this group while a private American collector is lending a ewer and basin. From across the diocese, and a century earlier, comes another major group, that includes a chalice and paten, flagon and a ciborium that were given to St Mary’s Church, Acton by Lady Dudley in 1639.
Contemporary church silver includes a striking crosier fashioned as serpents twining around a cross, designed by Paolo Guidi and made by Nicholas Plumber in 1992 for the Right Reverend Dr Richard Chartres (now Bishop of London) when he was made Bishop of Stepney.
Silver and the Church runs from April 19-May 15 at Goldsmiths’ Hall, London EC2. Admission is free.
Silver service – the relationship between Church and plate
In commercial terms ecclesiastical silver is not the strongest area of the market but there is no doubting its social and historical interest, especially when it has retained its links to the church for which it was made.
