A stunning Victorian silver sugar basket of circular form, heightened by an exquisite openwork design and execution of acorn laden oak branches and leaves. It presents a cast openwork swing handle with foliage and flowerheads, three leaf-headed scroll bracket feet, an applied rim and an original blue glass liner. The silver basket is a truthful example of the move from Naturalism, a style born in the 1840s, to the more Aesthetic type of decoration characterised by gentle, sinuous, swirling lines of plant forms and foliage, born in the 1870s. 

The silver sugar basket was made by Edward Charles Brown in 1872, and is hallmarked for London. It presents the maker’s mark ECB, the Lion passant, the London assay mark, date letter “r” for 1872, and registration number 8218.  

Edward Charles Brown started his career as an apprentice for George John Richards at 26 Seckforde Street, Clerkenwell, London. In 1852, they enter in a partnership together, and the business starts to operate under the name Richards and Brown. After Richards’ retirement in 1867, he would continue trading as Richards and Brown. He would also enter his own mark, ECB, in 1871. Another remarkable apprentice for George John Richards was William Comyns who will go on to obtain his freedom in 1856.