Jones Antique Lighting are proud to present this important arts and crafts chandelier by Jesson, Birkett & Co formally The Faulkner Bronze Company possibly designed and/or made By Thomas Birkett or Anne Stubbs. The hand-crafted, beaten and rivetted copper frame hangs pendant 3 original large flared vaseline lampshades of the highest quality probably made by John Walsh Walsh or alternatively one of the other Stourbridge glassworks. England c.1900-10

Provenance:

• See light (2nd from left) displayed in photo from Faulkner Bonze exibition dated 1901, Also illustrated a 5 arm version of the chandelier in the Jesson, Birkett and Co catalogue.No.E245

Ht. (as displayed)104cm/41in, Ht.(min)80/30.5, W.46/18

Jesson, Birkett & Co. Ltd (1904-1910)

Faulkner Bronze Company (1901-1904)

• Jesson, Birkett & Co. was a short-lived but highly influential Birmingham metalwork firm that emerged from the Faulkner Bronze Company.
• The firm is a critical link in the British Arts and Crafts movement, directly connecting the Birmingham Guild of Handicraft to the later success of A.E. Jones.
• Upon Fred Faulkner’s retirement in 1904 the firm was renamed Jesson, Birkett & Co. with the aforementioned becoming directors in Tenby Street, Birmingham.
• The firm produced light fittings, copper wares and Loetz style glass wares enclosed in copper under the “Cobral Ware” mark, a process they patented in 1901.
• Thomas Birkett was a former member of the Birmingham Guild of handicraft and he was joined by other former Guildsmen, John Webster and A. E. Williams.Anne Grisdale Stubbs:
• A gold medallist from the Birmingham School of Art (and later Thomas Birkett’s wife), was the firm’s star designer. Her elegant copper vases and metalware were frequently illustrated in The Studio magazine.
• The firm continued to make the most exquisite copper and mixed metal inkwells, cigarette boxes and light fittings, often using older Richard Llewellyn Rathbone designs purchased in 1902.
• The firm tended to use either enamels or Ruskin Pottery roundels for decoration.
• The firm wound up in 1910 and Thomas Birkett went on to work for Simplex Conduits Ltd in Birmingham.