Robert Phillips of Cockspur Street — Victorian Archaeological-Revival Jeweller
Robert Phillips of Cockspur Street — Victorian Archaeological-Revival Jeweller
The London goldsmith who brought Castellani's Etruscan vocabulary to English clients
Robert Phillips of Cockspur Street was a London goldsmith and jeweller who, in the second half of the nineteenth century, became the principal English exponent of the archaeological-revival style associated with the Castellani workshop in Rome. Operating from premises at 23 Cockspur Street, near Trafalgar Square, Phillips made and retailed gold jewellery in Etruscan, Greek, and Roman taste for an English clientele that included royalty, aristocrats, and the connoisseur middle class. His firm should not be confused with the auction house Phillips, founded independently by Harry Phillips in 1796.
The archaeological revival
The middle decades of the nineteenth century saw a sustained European fashion for jewellery in the manner of antique Greek, Etruscan, and Roman ornament. The principal source of the style was the Castellani family workshop in Rome, founded by Fortunato Pio Castellani in 1814 and continued by his sons Alessandro and Augusto. The Castellanis studied excavated jewellery in the Vatican and other Italian collections and developed techniques to reproduce the granulation, filigree, and enamelling of antique work to a standard the trade had thought lost.
The style spread internationally via the Great Exhibitions of 1851, 1855, and 1862, where Castellani showings drew enormous attention. English buyers, including Queen Victoria, acquired Castellani pieces and began to seek archaeological-revival ornament from London makers. Robert Phillips of Cockspur Street was the most successful of these London makers and became the primary domestic alternative to Castellani import for English clients.
Phillips' practice
Phillips' workshop produced gold parures, brooches, earrings, fibulae-form pin clasps, and bracelets in granulation and filigree, often set with carved hardstone cameos, classical intaglios, micromosaics, or Roman coins. The firm also retailed Italian work and is documented to have collaborated with Italian craftsmen in London. Phillips' jewellery is characteristically a little heavier and more solidly built than Castellani's, in keeping with English tastes, but the granulation and filigree quality is high and the design vocabulary closely follows Italian sources.
The firm's hallmark or maker's mark is found on many surviving pieces, often accompanied by the Cockspur Street address engraved or stamped on the jewel or its case. Phillips supplied a number of important commissions, including pieces presented to Princess Alexandra of Denmark on her marriage to the future Edward VII in 1863, and the firm appears regularly in the Royal accounts.
Materials and techniques
Most Phillips work is in 18-carat or higher gold, often with a yellow tone consistent with the antique inspiration. Granulation — the fixing of minute gold spheres to the surface — is the signature technique and is executed cleanly on Phillips pieces, though without quite reaching the finest Castellani standards. Filigree work, in which fine gold wires are formed into scrolls and palmettes and soldered to a backing, appears on borders and medallion centres. Hardstone cameos by Italian carvers and ancient intaglios provided the figurative content; coins, scarabs, and inscribed stones were also incorporated.
Enamel is found on better pieces, applied in a restricted antique-style palette of opaque white, blue, and green. Pearl and small coloured-stone accents appear but are subordinate to the goldwork.
Identification and the secondary market
Genuine Phillips of Cockspur Street pieces are identified through a combination of maker's marks, the Cockspur Street address, the consistent design vocabulary, and the quality of execution. Period fitted cases, when present, often bear the firm's name and address in gilt lettering. Many pieces survive with original cases, which substantially supports attribution and value.
The firm closed in 1881, on the death of Robert Phillips. Pieces continued to circulate in the antique trade through the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and Phillips work appears regularly in Bonhams, Christie's, and Sotheby's auctions of nineteenth-century jewellery. The Victoria & Albert Museum holds significant Phillips and Castellani pieces in its jewellery collection and provides a useful comparative reference for connoisseurs.
Condition issues to inspect on Phillips work include the integrity of granulation and filigree (loose grains and broken wires are common after a century and a half of wear), the security of hardstone settings, and the presence of original clasps and fittings. Period repairs are common; modern reattachment of granulation should be assessed against original technique.
In the trade
Phillips of Cockspur Street pieces sit in the upper tier of the Victorian-jewellery market, below Castellani in absolute price level but firmly within the connoisseur category. Identification of an unmarked piece as Phillips on stylistic grounds is difficult and should be supported by maker's mark or original case wherever possible. For buyers entering this market, the V&A and the British Museum collections provide the indispensable visual training; auction catalogue archives at the major houses are the secondary source.