News From the Bench: Anna Ólafsson
News From the Bench: Anna Ólafsson
As part of our work at The Scottish Goldsmiths Trust, we’re always eager to learn more about what jewellers and silversmiths across Scotland are working on at the bench. In February 2023, engraver Anna Ólafsson got in touch to share with us a stunning, newly completed commission for The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, based in London. In 2022, the Master of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers in London, commissioned Anna to create an engraved centrepiece for their collection.
The Clockmakers’ Centrepiece, Image by Kyle Howie
Anna Ólafsson is a British/Icelandic artist and designer based in Perthshire, Scotland. Working across the fields of drawing, painting, printmaking, etching and engraving, she makes artworks from metal, paper and light, inspired by the natural world.
Anna trained as a painter and printmaker at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, specialising in etching, before commencing engraving studies with Dr Malcolm Appleby MBE FRSE in May 2021.
Anna Ólafsson
The Master of the Clockmakers (2022), attended the Hand Engravers’ Association’s Seal Engraving masterclass to observe the progress Anna had been making in her engraving studies under Dr Malcolm Appleby MBE at his workshop in Grandtully, Scotland.
Her studies were generously sponsored by The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers and the Walter Craig Charitable Trust, Dundee. She currently works alongside Malcolm Appleby at his workshop in Grandtully, Perthshire and from her own workshop in the city of Perth.
In 2022, the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers in London, commissioned Anna to create an engraved centrepiece for their collection. The centrepiece was made in Perthshire and hallmarked at the Edinburgh Assay Office in January 2023. On January 24th it was presented to the Court at Painters' Hall to commemorate their term as Master of the oldest surviving horological institute in the world. It is the newest piece in a collection of silver dating back to 1656.
Images by Kyle Howie
The design for the piece is based on the motif of tree rings, with the underside of the bowl inspired by a recently felled oak tree noticed on a walk in the Dupplin Estate woodlands in Perthshire. Tree rings being a theme often associated with the marking of time, the symbolism seemed fitting for this new piece. The final bowl was formed in a hollow chiselled from a stump, taken from an oak tree which had grown in the immediate vicinity of the one depicted in the piece. The centrepiece is raised just enough to allow the light to reflect around the inside of the bowl, without disturbing the legibility of the image. Another suggestion by the Master was to incorporate the heraldry of the Clockmakers’ Company in some way. An interpretation of this was inspired by the Roman hunting bowls that Anna studied during a visit to the British Museum during the seal engraving course. The final design reflects the chaos and resilience of nature, including creatures that inhabit the Perthshire countryside where Anna lives and works.
Images by Kyle Howie