Gilbert Leigh Marks (1861-1905) is considered by many to have been the most talented English art metalworker of his generation. In a career tragically cut short by ill-health he is thought to have produced between 700 and 800 pieces, the majority of which were in silver. Marks's work is instantly recognisable, not least because of his choice of decoration – chiefly chased flowers, fruit and foliage – and its remarkably tactile, soft, fluid finishes. As one contemporary observer wrote in The Art Journal, 'The colour, too, of these bowls and vases and beakers – the dull yet exquisite grey of unpolished silver – is exceedingly pleasant to the cultivated eye.'

Born into a middle-class family in Croydon, near London, Marks boasted several relatives who were painters. One of his paternal uncles was the artist Henry Stacey Marks R.A. (1829-1898), and his mother's brother was the painter and illustrator, Frederick Walker A.R.A. (1840-1875). Upon leaving school in 1878, Gilbert Marks joined a firm of manufacturing silversmiths (thought to have been Holland, Aldwinckle & Slater of Jewin Crescent, City of London) with whom he spent seven years before leaving to work for Masurel & Fils, wool brokers. In the meantime, however, his leisure hours were devoted to the perfection of his craft as a silversmith. In 1895 he held his first exhibition at the retail goldsmiths and jewellers, Johnson, Walker & Tolhurst at 80 Aldersgate Street, City. The firm continued to sponsor Gilbert Marks in a successful series of annual exhibitions, the last of which was in 1901Interviewed in 1898 by a correspondent for the magazine, The Artist, Gilbert Marks spoke of his attitude towards his work:

I had been deeply and sadly impressed, and yet stimulated, by seeing the way in which the methods of manufacturer adapted to meet the public demand were killing the spirit of craftsmanship in metals. A man who had skill in designing, and in working out his designs, had no incentive to higher effort while subject to the elimination by machinery of all personality in his work, and with the knowledge always before him of the debasing requirements of the market, which demands something cheap and showy. It was therefore necessary, if I were to be true to myself, that I should be free to work out the ideas I had about silver work, and to work too more or less unfettered…. You should get into your silver-ware the best capabilities both of the metal and the workman-designer. For this reason I do the designs myself, and never produce a duplicate. No dies or machinery are used, and so the artist's fancy is at work upon the subject in hand from the moment when the design is first conceived to the time when the last detail has been wrought in the metal. If you wish to vary any portion during the progress of work, you can do it…. The man who buys the stock plate is buying useful articles but not unique ones, whereas he who commissions an original work upon which the craftsman has bestowed his best personal labour is buying a work of art, the money value of which increases with an increase of reputation that may come to the artist.

For further information, see Philip Gibson's article in John Culme, The Directory of Gold & Silversmiths, Jewellers & Allied Traders, 1838-1914, The Antique Collectors's Club, Woodbridge, 1987, vol.I, pp.312-13.