The Duchess Battersea Sign Writing
Sign WritingKensington Gilders were commissioned by The Duchess pub in Battersea London to reproduce a large impressive public house mirror in the style of the Victorian era, featuring gold leaf sign writing.
Victorian pub mirrors are one of the great traditions of the British pub trade, and producing an authentic reproduction requires a thorough understanding of the techniques that were used in the 19th century. The original craftsmen who made these mirrors were specialists, known as "glass embossers" or "brilliant cutters", and they combined reverse glass gilding, acid-etching, brilliant cutting and hand-painted decoration to create the elaborate mirrors that became a hallmark of the Victorian public house.
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For The Duchess, we worked on a large plate glass mirror that was to be the centrepiece of the bar area. The sign writing was executed in reverse on the back of the glass, a technique known as verre eglomise, using 23.5 carat gold loose leaf. Working in reverse requires a particular discipline: every letter and every line must be applied back to front, and any mistake means starting that section again, as there is no way to correct reverse gilding without removing and relaying the leaf.
The lettering style was drawn from reference photographs of original Victorian pub mirrors, with ornate serif capitals, decorative flourishes and border work typical of the period. Our sign writer laid out each letter by hand, first drawing the design in reverse on the front of the glass as a guide, then gilding on the reverse face. Once the gold was laid and the lettering complete, we backed up the gilded areas with a protective coat of paint to seal the leaf.
The finished mirror was installed above the bar at The Duchess, where it catches the light and gives the pub exactly the sense of period character and warmth that the owners were looking for. It is the kind of traditional craft that we are always pleased to be asked to carry out, and one that fewer and fewer workshops are equipped to do properly.
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