London Leopard

In 2016 I won the Make Your Mark Awards silversmithing category for my design entitled 'London Leopard'. The competition encourages people to celebrate the hallmarks we place on our work rather than simply hide them on the underside of a piece. For this piece I decided hand engraved a leopards head on the surface of a spun beaker as a representation of the London Assay mark. 

As part of winning the competition I was able to make my design, Argentium Silver supplied me with two silver discs which Stewart Hersey and his workshop spun up into the beaker forms. After attending an intensive engraving course run by the Hand Engraving Association and some help from the engravers at Hamilton and Inches during my summer placement I engraved the leopard design into the beaker. Both beakers were sent to the Assay Office in London where they were both laser hallmarked in prominent location on the beaker; the second beaker was laser engraved at the Assay office as another variation on my design. Thank you to all who helped me in realising this piece from start to end and a big thank you to the Assay Office for running this competition and making me think about celebrating the ways in which I sign my work to be a feature.

Below some photos of the design and making process.