Plate, 1920

Studio of Francis Higgins and Son Ltd.

RA Collection: Art

From its founding years, an artist or architect elected to the Council of the Royal Academy of Arts was required to gift silver plateware, engraved with their name. The silver was used at academy dinners. This pair of plates was gifted by architect Edwin Lutyens PRA in 1921.

Cinquefoil with beaded border, the plates are respectively engraved: ‘Given by Sir Edwin L. Lutyens R.A. 1920. for the use of the President & Council’ with ‘ROYAL ACADEMY LONDON 1768’ (in laurel wreath).

A succession of thirty-seven dinner plates were presented to the academy between 1788 to 1943, all of a matching polygonal style. This pair of plates bears the makers mark of Francis Higgins & Son, London silversmiths established in the 1830s. Francis Higgins & Son was regarded as a leading wholesaler, including supplying R & S Garrard & Co, the Crown Jewellers. Many of the dinner plates presented between 1912 and 1933 were supplied by this company.

The work is part of the RA’s Silver Collection of gifted plateware. Inscribed plateware used at academy dinners created a sense of history and connection to both past and present Council members. The convention to gift silver was not followed by all and both its presentation and usage gradually became less observed from the mid-20th century onwards.

In the photograph above, plate 03/5155 appears on the left and 03/5156 on the right.

Further reading:

P. Glanville, ‘Silver’, R.Simon and M.Stevens ed. The Royal Academy of Arts: History and Collections (New Haven and London 2018) pp.396-411.