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22-731: The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection is a collection of objets d'art formed by the English -born businessman Sir Arthur Gilbert , who made most of his fortune in the property business in California . After initially becoming interested in silver, he assembled a large collection of decorative arts, which he gave the British nation in 1996. It now has a permanent home in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London . The V&A describes

44-471: A Martingale . In England many of these items of harness found their way into country public houses as the era of the heavy horse declined, and are still associated today as a pub decoration. By the late 19th century heavy horses were decorated with brasses of all kinds and sizes. During this era working horse parades were popular throughout the British Isles and prize or merit awards were given, some by

66-540: A higher standard of refined manufacture and finish; the classification usually excludes objects made for realising a practical function. As works of art, objets de vertu reflect the rarified aesthetic and conspicuous consumption characteristic of an aristocratic court — of the late-medieval Burgundian dukes , the Mughal emperors , or Ming China — such as the Lycurgus Cup , which is a cage cup made of Roman glass ;

88-654: A highly popular pastime amongst the upper and middle classes. Indeed, the collecting of these humble brasses became especially popular amongst academics with many famous, early collections being formed by public schoolmasters and other prominent professionals, such as A.H. Tod, a Master at Charterhouse School and Dr Kirk of Pickering in Yorkshire, whose collection is still housed at the York Castle Museum in York. The writing about such items also commenced c. 1890s and

110-544: The Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). Horse brasses were often highly prized by the " carters ", who decorated their horse with them. Other horse brass subjects include advertising, royalty commemoration, and in later years, souvenir brasses for places and events, many of which are still being made and used today. Collecting horse brasses for their own sake other than as decorations for harness seems to have commenced around 1880, when women bought

132-533: The Byzantine agate "Rubens vase"; the Roman glass " Portland Vase ", and onyx and chalcedony cameo carvings , whilst the pre–World War I production of objets d'art featured Fabergé eggs made of precious metals and decorated with gemstones . A comparable term that appears in 18th- and 19th-century French sale catalogs, though now less used, is objets de curiosité , "objects of curiosity", now devolved into

154-792: The Gilbert Collection" by the Gilbert Collection Trust in June 2001. The exhibition was fitted out under the supervision of the silver expert Timothy Schroder, and it continued until 27 January 2008. The space then became the Embankment Galleries, an exhibition space for contemporary art. Meanwhile, the collection was incorporated into the Victoria and Albert Museum, where a new display in rooms 70–73 opened on 30 June 2009. In early 2011, fifty objects from

176-463: The collection to his native country, after a dispute with LACMA regarding the collection's placement and display. In 2000, it went on public display as "The Gilbert Collection" in a suite of seventeen galleries at Somerset House in London, the audio guide narrated by the actor Tony Clarkin . Formerly Private Curator to the Gilbert Collection, Jeanette Hanisee Gabriel was appointed "Honorary Curator of

198-461: The collection were returned, by the provisions of a long-term loan, to LACMA. 51°29′48″N 0°10′19″W  /  51.49667°N 0.17194°W  / 51.49667; -0.17194 Objets d%27art In art history , the French term objet d'art ( / ˌ ɒ b ʒ eɪ ˈ d ɑːr / ; French pronunciation: [ɔbʒɛ daʁ] ) describes an ornamental work of art , and

220-486: The early animal welfare movements in the late 19th century) it is thought that the first stamped brasses were made as a lighter (and cheaper), alternative to cast brasses being later exported throughout the British Empire. Unlike their cast cousins, stamped brasses were not made in moulds, but pressed out of rolled sheet brass approximately 1/16 in thickness although other gauges of sheet than earlier examples. Due to

242-480: The ease of their manufacture, many thousands of these stamped types were produced, but there are some that are very rare. The production of both cast and stamped brasses has continued since the demise of the British working horse but their manufacture is mainly centred on the souvenir trade, and other specialist manufacturers who provide for the heavy horse world who still breed and show the various breeds. The National Horse Brass Society of England has members all over

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264-793: The less-valued curio . Elaborate late Renaissance display pieces in silver that incorporate organic elements such as ostrich eggs , nuts of the coco de mer and sea-shells are grouped in a volume, published in 1991, as "The Curiousities" in the catalogues of the Waddesdon Bequest at the British Museum . Horse brass Phalera is the archaeological term for equivalent disks, which were popular in Iron Age Europe , including Ancient Rome. In ancient Rome, horse harnesses were sometimes embellished with horse brasses known as phalerae , normally in bronze , cut or cast in

286-488: The mid-19th century which developed as part of a general flowering of the decorative arts following the Great Exhibition . There are a great deal of die-hard, unfounded myths surrounding these decorations such as their usage as amulets to ward off the " evil eye ". The most popular size is 3 × 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 inches of flat brass with a hanger by which the brass is threaded onto a horse harness strap, known as

308-459: The newly issued, pierced-design, die-struck brasses which were used for pin-cushions. A little later these were often used as fingerplates on doors which can be corroborated by accounts in the trade magazine, Saddler and Harness by the veteran saddler William Albery or Horsham in Sussex. From 1890 onward, collecting the various types of brass, i.e. face-pieces, swingers, and hame-plates, etc., became

330-497: The objects as: "many in precious materials, and often on a small scale. It is famous for European and British masterpieces including gold and silver, gold boxes , painted enamels and mosaics", these last mostly micromosaics . For decades, the collection was on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and Gilbert had promised eventually to make it a permanent gift. However, he decided to give

352-509: The scope of the Museum’s ceramic, plate, textiles and glass collections." The artwork collection also includes metal curtain ties, a lacquered papier-maché tray, tobacco boxes, cigarette cases , découpage (cut-paper items), portrait miniatures , a gilt-brass clock finial, plaques, statuettes, plaquettes, a horse brass , a metal pipe tamper, a small glass painting , et cetera. The objet de vertu , wherein vertu suggests rich materials and

374-473: The second half of the 19th century the production of such things had evolved from a local, decorative cult into a national fashion with the bulk of their production centred in and around the West Midlands. Stamped brasses on heavy horse harness appeared on the scene around 1880, with a small number occurring perhaps a decade or so earlier, and it is highly likely that the process developed from one that

396-497: The shape of a boss, disk, or crescent, most often used in pairs on a harness. In medieval England, decorative horse brasses were in use before the 12th century, serving as talismans and status symbols, but extensive, original research by members of the National Horse Brass Society has shown that there is no connection whatsoever between these bronze amulets to the working-class harness decorations used in

418-750: The term objets d’art describes a range of works of art, usually small and three-dimensional, made of high-quality materials, and a finely-rendered finish that emphasises the aesthetics of the artefact. Artists create and produce objets d’art in the fields of the decorative arts and metalwork , porcelain and vitreous enamel ; figurines , plaquettes , and engraved gems ; ivory carvings and semi-precious hardstone carvings ; tapestries , antiques , and antiquities ; and books with fine bookbinding . The National Maritime Museum , Greenwich , London, describes their accumulated artworks as a: "collection of objets d’art [which] comprises over 800 objects. These are mostly small, decorative art items that fall outside

440-486: The views of individual collectors as to when or where working-horse harness decoration first began in the British Isles, most collectors agree that cast brasses were the first to appear on the scene. Opinion is also still divided as to how these originated, but most collectors nowadays are in agreement that the earliest decorations were simple, cast studs in a variety of shapes and sizes. The earliest types were probably even made locally by smiths or other skilled artisans but by

462-498: Was already established in the manufacture of carriage harness trappings and military insignia. However, production of these appears to have peaked shortly before the First World War , and since the 1920s, a few types have been produced but their quality is rather poor being made from thinner gauge brass sheet. Due to serious considerations of the sheer weight of cast harness decorations carried by working horses (first raised by

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484-481: Was dominated by much Victorian romanticism surrounding the supposed, esoteric origin and ancient, unbroken lineage of these decorations. Such myths include their origin as talismanic symbols being brought back to England by homecoming knights returning from the Crusades , or in later years, by migrating Romani , though, once again, absolutely no evidence has ever been offered in support of these theories. Whatever

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