This small but intricately detailed enamel plaque was made by May Hart Partridge, an accomplished enamellist who had been a student of Arthur Gaskin at the Vittoria Street School for Jewellers and Silversmiths in Birmingham, the centre of jewellery production in the early 20th Century. As well as executing work of her own design, Partridge also did enamelling on C.R. Ashbee’s jewellery at the Guild of Handicraft in Chipping Campden. Partridge was part of an artistic family; her husband Fred Partridge was also a jeweller while his sister Ethel Mairet was a pioneering weaver, with links to both the British Arts and Crafts scene in Ditchling and the Japanese mingei (folk art) movement. May Hart Partridge’s life and career were tragically cut short when she took her own life in 1917.
Jewellery design and enamelling in particular were increasingly seen as appropriate and respectable artistic pursuits for women at the turn of the 20th century. In addition to May Morris, who designed and made her own jewellery, women such as Edith Dawson, Georgie Gaskin and Phoebe Stabler worked alongside their husbands producing outstanding pieces in the Arts and Crafts style. Enamelling also became a popular amateur hobby for wealthy women, such as those permitted to observe C.R. Ashbee at work in Chipping Campden for the price of £1 a week. Accomplished aristocratic female enamellers included Princess Marie Louise, granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and Madeline Wyndham, who along with her husband Percy Wyndham commissioned Clouds House from Philip Webb.
