Collection: Tasmanian Historical

Tasmanian silversmithing history is marked by a period of colonial prosperity in the 1830s-1850s, led by convict and ex-convict artisans like Joseph Forrester and Charles Jones working under entrepreneurial retailers such as David Barclay. This era produced distinctive, robust colonial silver, often created with a "naive" quality due to artisans working on ambitious pieces outside their usual specialisations. Later, a more modern period saw individual jewellers and important figures like Harold Francis Sargison, who was active from 1905 and known for ecclesiastical pieces like a gold monstrance for St Mary's Cathedral as well as his hand beaten arts and crafts style pieces that are still collected today.