A pair of silver bowls by Amy Mary Leeming

For sale is this pair of small silver bowls (possibly salts) by the rare woman silversmith Amy Mary Leeming.  The salts are in the “Charles I” style with engraved stylized floral decoration.

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 April 1914 and the date of these salts is 1916.  Their design, is very similar to that used by the Duchess of Sutherland Cripples Guild,  and this may have been Leeming’s inspiration, or perhaps she had links with them.   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.

See A870 for a set of spoons by Leeming that are now in the Collection’s archive.

Condition of the salts is excellent and they are a very good gauge.

Price: Sold

Maker: Amy Mary Leeming

Designer: Amy Mary Leeming

Date: 1916

Marks: AL, London, “a”

Material: Sterling Silver

Condition: Excellent

Size: 8.0 cm diameter, Height: 4.75 cm

Weight: 3.1 oz, 85 grams each