£875
Auction: Design Since 1860
copper cloisonné enamel, within an oak frame, stamped mark to base N134B/ CLEMENT HEATON/ ET CO./ NEUCHATEL/ 1898
Note: Clement Heaton, an early member of A.H. Mackmurdo’s Century Guild, set up his company ‘Heatons Cloisonné-Mosaic Ltd’ at 6 Berners Street, London in 1887, a year after selling his share in his father’s lucrative stained glass business Heaton, Butler & Bayne for £4,800. He patented his enamelling technique in 1886, inspired by medieval techniques which precluded the firing process, and which instead used coloured cements: a mixture of resin, beeswax, sulphur marble dust and coloured pigments. Hardening over time, these cements could be polished to give the soft matt finish characteristic of Heaton’s work and seen in the present example.