Item number: 40150
An Art Déco sterling silver biscuit barrel,
Sheffield 1932 by Hukin & Heath
Cylindrical shape, the base standing on four flat bracket feet. The even lid is surrounded to the rim by a horizontal, concave wavy frieze and finished on the top by a disc-shaped knob in ivory. A highly elegant Art Déco sterling silver biscuit barrel of excellent quality, whose design still looks exceptionally modern today.
Height (knob): 12.7 cm / 5″, height (lid): 11.1 cm / 4.37″, diameter: 12.6 cm / 4.96″; 528.1 g / 16.97 oz
A. E. Harvey and Hukin & Heath
Arthur Edward Harvey was born on 22 October 1893, the son of a bicycle manufacturer, and died on 13 September 1978.
A. E. Harvey was an architect and industrial designer of great importance in Great Britain. He received his initial training as an artist at the Royal College of Art, the Slade School and the Royal Academy School. As Head of the School of Industrial Design at Birmingham School of Art, he was made an Honorary Member of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths (London) in 1926 and 1927 for his contributions to the promotion of design programmes. Together with Harold Stabler and Keith Murray, A. E. Harvey was one of the first designers in Britain to produce designs for mass production. Their designs for silverware in the contemporary modernist Art Deco style were produced by the country’s major silverware factories such as Goldsmith’s & Silversmith’s Company, Mappin & Webb, Hukin & Heath and Deakin & Francis.
Hukin and Heath was founded in Birmingham in 1855 as a silversmithy and electroplating company. In 1875, the company registered its trade mark at the Birmingham Assay Office, while the founders Jonathan Wilson Hukin and John Thomas Heath registered their trade mark at the London Assay Office in 1879. The manufacture of the silverware was based at the Imperial Works, Great Charles Street, Birmingham. Hukin & Heath’s showrooms were located at 19 Charterhouse Street, London.
J.T. Hukin withdrew from the business in 1881, and in 1886 J.T. Heath continued the partnership with John Hartsghorne Middleton. In 1904 the company became a limited company under the name of Hukin & Heath Ltd. and was dissolved in 1953. Hukin & Heath is known for its production of sometimes pioneering modern designs of silverware – like is the case with this biscuit box – and silver plated items and was under the direction of Dr Christopher Dresser in the 1870s and 1880s, whose Arts & Crafts style designs gained a worldwide reputation.
