Silver Sugar Tongs c. 1938

Florence Grant Brown made this drawing of Silver Sugar Tongs with watercolour and graphite, sometime in the 20th century. I love how this image exists somewhere between a technical drawing and a still life. The rendering of the tongs is very subtle, like she’s trying to capture the way light reflects off their surface rather than their precise form. The reflections are almost pearlescent, with delicate strokes that evoke a real sense of how light might play across polished silver. The paper has some foxing - these little yellow spots adding their own texture to the piece. They lead the eye down from the top left of the page to the centre of the composition. It reminds me a little of some of Giorgio Morandi’s paintings of bottles, these everyday objects that become vehicles for exploring light, form, and tone. Both artists share a quiet, contemplative approach, finding beauty in the mundane. Ultimately, this simple drawing invites us to slow down and really see, which is, I think, what all good art should do.