Specialist: Adrian Hope
Inspired by the significance of reliquary boxes, silversmith Adrian has created a nativity box destined to be a family treasure
My grandfather had a room full of boxes. Some were Indian silver, others brass, there were wooden ones and a few were made from simple cardboard.Inside were cufflinks, old train tickets,bullets, razor blades, all sorts. As a small boy, I thought it was brilliant,' says Adrian Hope, an award-winning silversmith whose work is represented in public collections and museums including the V&A. 'I think artists draw on what they saw when they were wide-eyed, utterly engaged children,' he adds. That said, it was many years before the boxes made their way into Adrian's work.
Adrian's career began 40 years ago, but he made the first in a series of reliquary boxes in 2003. This autumn, he completed his 'Nativity Box' which, like its predecessors, takes a house-shape form. The roof, topped with an 18-carat-gold Star of Bethlehem, is the lid. The geometric surface patterning is the result of Adrian's research into tessellation, and is applied using paper embossing, his variation on paper rolling. At the front is an arch, complete with a tiny working latch, and inside is a removable figure of Mary cradling the baby Jesus carved from boxwood and cast in solid silver.
At just 12.5cm tall, the 'Nativity Box' is an exquisite object: beautiful, tactile, brimming with meaning. As expected of a one-off piece made from precious metal, it it is priced as something destined to become a treasured family heirloom.
Childhood experiences aside, Adrian believes the origins of his boxes are twofold. First, in the house-shape shrines he saw at an exhibition on the Celtic world at the National Museum of Scotland, and secondly in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century reliquaries he saw in the Museum dell'Opera del Duomo in Pisa, said to contain the remains of saints. 'Reliquaries are about remembrance. They are places to put items that mean something.'
The first ones he made were house shaped but empty. Then, while being filmed by The Goldsmiths' Company, he started sketching from a picture of the Voyage of St Brendan. 'In 20 seconds, I'd designed a box with a wave pattern and a boat, called "Reliquary for a Traveller". I can't explain exactly why, or what it means. But if I could, I wouldn't have to make it.'
Adrian will continue to make reliquary boxes, but he will not alter his version of the Nativity. 'People have asked if I am going to make the three kings. I'm not. Why would I? The whole story is already there.'
Adrian Hope: 01721-760229; adrianhope.co.uk. A 'Nativity Box' costs £4,450.
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