Mazer Bowl

1932 Mazer Bowl by Omar Ramsden

Mounted antiqued Maplewood, the hand-made rim is reinforced by a cast silver-gilt leaf border inside and decorative cast outer frieze of crowned leopard heads and buckles (the Company’s heraldic charges) amidst Tudor roses and leaves on a silver foot with twist wire mouldings. Central enamel print of Company’s arms. Maker’s mark: Omar Ramsden. Engraved OMAR RAMSDEN ME FECIT MCMXXXII. Measurements: Height 14.8 cm Diameter 33.5 cm.

Ramsden made his public reputation through his brilliant marketing and salesmanship. He received wide ranging commissions for ceremonial presentation pieces for city companies, corporations and forms, to chalices and crosses for cathedrals and churches.

For Ramsden, this mazer bowl evoked the medieval mazer bowls from a revered era of craftsmanship. At a meeting at the Hall in 1935 for designers and manufacturers interested in the forthcoming Royal Academy Exhibition of Industrial Art, Ramsden was to end the discussion with the words ‘We have talked a lot about industry and very little about art, we British – I wish we could use the word English – look upon art as something that just comes along. We forget that art is the mainspring from which all industry of any artistic pretence at all must come’. Commissioned by the Company.