Garden of Hesperides on Display in Edinburgh

One of the most important pieces ever produced by the British Arts and Crafts movement is now on display in the National Museum of Scotland. The giant overmantel, by the leading British enameller Alexander Fisher (1864-1936), dates from 1899-1900 and was acquired for £210,000 with a £70,000 grant from The Art Fund (with a contribution from the Wolfson Foundation) and £95,000 from the Lindsay Endowment Fund.

The overmantel, representing The Garden of Hesperides, was owned by the Scottish politician Arthur Balfour (1848-1930), who served as Prime Minister from 1902-1905. Balfour paid Alexander Fisher £750 for it - almost a sixth of his official salary as First Lord of the Treasury.

In Greek mythology, the Garden of Hesperides was a garden where immortality-giving golden apples grew. The Hesperides were nymphs who were responsible for protecting the apples along with Ladon, a never-sleeping, hundred-headed dragon. In one myth the apples were stolen by Hercules after a series of heroic adventures.

The copper, silver, ivory and enamel overmantel shows the garden in vivid colours, from the golden apple trees to the dragon waiting to pounce. It was acclaimed as an ‘astonishing achievement’ when it was exhibited in London in 1900, and was much admired in the dining room of Arthur Balfour’s impressive mansion Whittingehame, in East Lothian.

Although it was displayed at one end of Balfour’s dining-room, an overmantel was traditionally mounted on a ledge above a fireplace.

The overmantel, which measures nearly two metres across and just under a metre high, is on display next to other significant pieces from the Arts and Crafts movement including panels by designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh and enamel work by Phoebe Traquair.