“Handwork rendered expeditious”: the Rottmann-Silver stencil venture of the 1890s

This paper looks at the work of designer Arthur Silver and his business partner Alexander Rottmann, and their collaboration in what they called a “stencil venture” in the 1890s. Both Silver and Rottmann were contemporaries of Christopher Dresser and like him were fascinated by the art of Japan. They drew on authentic Japanese sources, and developed their ideas into new products for the British market, making a new kind of contribution to the Victorian world of goods.
However, rather than think of the influence of Japan in purely aesthetic terms, we need to also consider the influence of Japanese – or Japanese inspired - techniques of making on the products available to British consumers. This paper examines the collaboration between businessmen Alexander Rottmann and Arthur Silver in the 1890s, with specific attention to a collection of Japanese stencils and to a number of stencilled wallcoverings that survive in the Silver Studio Collection, now part of the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture, at Middlesex University.