A Victorian silver-plated plaque, 'Much Ado About Nothing', designed by Léonard Morel-Ladeuil in 1884, Elkington & Co, Sheffield, 1885

Notes

Léonard Morel-Ladeuil was born in 1820 at Clermont-Ferrand, Auvergne. At the age of fifteen he began his training in metal sculpture in Paris under Antoine Vechte (1799-1868), who claimed to have been the reviver of artistic repousse work, and for whom he eventually acted as assistant. In 1859 Morel-Ladeuil signed his first contract with Elkington's, where he worked until his death in 1888. His most celebrated work, The Milton Shield, widely known from the large number of electrotype copies manufactured by Elkington's, was shown by the firm at the Paris Exhibition of 1867. The Shield was purchased from the exhibition for the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum).