A rare designer Bernard Instone solid silver & enamel novelty Boat Brooch C.1964

A rare 925 solid silver & blue enamel novelty Brooch by Bernard Instone modelled as an Art Deco Boat / Yacht upon waves with blue enamel. Fully signed on the back in two places as image – Sterling Silver -B.I. – Made in England and full Birmingham hallmarks and again B.I. – In contemporary presentation box

Circa 1964

Good Condition

2.5 inches (6.5cm) height approx – 9g weight approx

Safe UK shipping is included in the price. International shipping at cost

I have only ever seen this design without enamel appear on the market, very rare to find this design with its enamel in tact. A lovely rare Brooch by a top designer who’s rarer work is becoming difficult to find. Very highly desirable. One of the last piece Bernard Instone made, the hallmark was struck after he retired.

Bernard Instone worked in his studio in Birmingham, England from the early 1900s to 1963 producing jewellery displaying values of the Arts and Crafts movement. In his pieces he used semi-precious stones set mainly in silver with enamel decoration. Today the work of Bernard Instone is much sought after among collectors, due to the high quality workmanship, detail, and beauty of his jewellery.

Bernard Instone was a very versatile jewellery designer. He worked with John Paul Cooper in the early days and went on to design for Sybil Dunlop. He moved to the West Country in his final years where he sold items directly from his studio. He died in the 1980s.

Bernard Instone: Arts and Crafts jeweller
Instone was born in Kings Norton in Birmingham, and his artistic talent was apparent from a very early age. He was only twelve years old when he won a scholarship to the Birmingham School of Jewellery at Vittoria Street, part of the Birmingham School of Art, where he studied under renowned Arts and Crafts jeweller Arthur Gaskin and learned silversmithing from 1904—1912.
After leaving the School, Instone worked for a while for another renowned jeweller and craftsman, John Paul Cooper, in his Westerham studio, and then studied in Berlin under Emil Lettre, Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Court goldsmith. In October 1913 he was back in England, and began part-time teaching at Vittoria Street. As well as making pieces for the Gaskins and Bernard Cuzner and other teachers at the school, he also made his first commissions at this time. In 1920 he set up his own jewellers and silversmith works—Langstone Silver Works—in Digbeth in Birmingham. The company worked from there until 1954 when it moved to Lode Lane in Solihull.

As well as making his own designs, Instone produced jewellery for other jewellers, such as Sibyl Dunlop: a family website about Instone records “he visited [Dunlop] every Friday at her shop in Kensington, supplying her with made up designs already marked up with the SD mark ready for the retail market and [in the] 1940s Liberty became a customer after 25 years of trying to sell to them.” His two sons came to work in the business, and Instone retired in 1963 to the Cotswolds, where he died in 1987.
Instone was strongly inspired by nature, and floral themes occur in most of his pieces. His jewellery can be roughly divided into two types: that with enamel, and that without. The enamel pieces commonly have a floral theme, with leaves and multicoloured flowers often in sugary pastel colours, all picked out in enamel and sometime embellished with marcasites.
Instone sometimes signed his work ‘BI’ and ‘SILVER’, but just as often did not sign his work at all.

Instone’s pieces were very popular during his lifetime and have become increasingly collectable. His work is held in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and is sold by London galleries such as Van Den Bosch and Tadema Gallery: the Instone jewellery in the archive sections of their websites is well worth a look.