A boxed set of eight silver spoons by Amy Mary Leeming

For sale is this beautifully made set of eight spoons by the rare woman silversmith Amy Mary Leeming.  The boxed set contains two large desert spoons with geometric patterns to the handles and stylized, slightly different, flowers to the terminals.  There are six large tea spoons or coffee spoons of similar design, each also with a differing flower terminal. All are a good gauge of silver.

Very little is known about the maker, Amy Mary Leeming.  She was born in 1878, Amy Horton, and married Frederick Leeming , a well to do solicitor, in 1905.  In 1926 she exhibited her ceramics at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society and seems to be best known as a potter. She recorded her silver mark at the London assay office before this in 1914, the date of these spoons is 1920.  Judging from the spoons’ design, with is very HG Murphy or RE Stone in style, I am pretty confident  she was trained at the Central School of Art and these may be her student pieces.   She died in 1929, recorded as “suicide due to temporary insanity”, she was found in her pottery studio and I suspect she may in fact have died inadvertently of carbon monoxide poisoning.

The box, which has been made for these particular spoons, is marked for the The Alexander Clark Company, who probably retailed these at some point, I would think not long after they were made.

Condition of box and spoons and is excellent.

Price: Sold

Maker: Amy Mary Leeming

Designer: Amy Mary Leeming

Date: 1920

Marks: AL, London, e,

Material: Sterling Silver

Condition: Excellent

Size: Desert: 16.25 cm long, Coffee: 12.25 cm

Weight: Desert: 1.6oz, 44 grams, Coffee: 0.8oz, 24 grams each