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 SMP Silver Salon Forums
 A Curator's Viewpoint
 Another sly little monument
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| Author | Topic: Another sly little monument |
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Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 |
posted 10-28-2008 09:19 AM
  
 This one almost got away. I first saw this piece at one of the big shows in the Park Avenue Armory in NY. It was displayed with a group of Russian enameled pieces. It was almost six months later that I slapped my forehead and thought JEEZ I HAVE TO BUY THAT! And I did. It is certainly the greatest single bargain I ever found for my museum, and continues to be a unique object. Made by Gorham in 1877 (J date letter) it mimics cloisonne enamel, and hence was looking at Japanese enamels at the Centennial in Philadelphia in 1876. But it is almost Egyptian looking in its stylized design and colors. It was from the "special" book, which alas did not survive in the Gorham archives, although related designs in silver appear in other Gorham archive records. It's only 5 1/4 inches high. IP: Logged |
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Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 |
posted 10-28-2008 09:24 AM
Oops. Did I mention that this was in 1984? And in 1986 I bought this at auction. It was the first time I crossed the line into five-figures, which was scarey for an innocent young curator. I've posted this somewhere here, but God knows where. Also enamel- lavender, chartreuse, dark green. Enameling is one of my collecting themes, because it links jewelry and silver nicely. "Viking" as only Paulding Farnham could have conceived it - Viking as imagined by Edith Wharton. Jeweled and enameled. Made for the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo; shown in Turin in 1902, then in St. Louis in 1904. SO here's my question: what is my most desired missing piece in the story of enameled silver in America? I've been dreaming about it as a Centennial acquisition for next year...Can you guess? IP: Logged |
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Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 |
posted 10-28-2008 09:33 AM
Hey, I'm replying to my own posts! Does that mean I'm crazy? Here are larger detail shots of the Viking coffee set, with a shot of the marks. Let's hope they're not too big. So, is this arts and crafts? (Trick question) IP: Logged |
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Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 |
posted 10-28-2008 09:35 AM
For some reason I couldn't get all the images into that one post. Here are the creamer and sugar close up. IP: Logged |
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dragonflywink Posts: 993 |
posted 10-28-2008 10:38 AM
The Viking set bears a stong resemblance to some of the over-the-top late 19th-early 20th century Dragestil (Dragon style) pieces by Norwegian makers. ~Cheryl IP: Logged |
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IJP Posts: 326 |
posted 10-28-2008 07:31 PM
Arts & Crafts? I certainly wouldn't have described it as such. To me, and I may not be fully informed, Arts & Crafts refers to an artisanal, hand-worked style of silverwork and other decorative arts, which emphasizes and celebrates the art and craft of silversmithing as performed by, usually, smaller companies and individuals, though that certainly doesn't exclude larger manufacturing firms as long as the work is in that style. With that said, the interwoven banding chased into the body of the tea set pieces is highly reminiscent of decorative elements in Arts & Crafts-era pieces I vaguely recall seeing, however, I believe that Mr. Farnham's design is guided far more by the Aesthetic, Saracenic, and Islamic forms and motifs favored by his mentor Edward C. Moore, by whom Paulding Farnham was greatly influenced. Note for example the exotic form of the coffeepot above, similar to Turkish or Islamic coffeepots designed by Moore. I believe that the surface decoration is inspired by the same source, though not dissimilar to decorative styles found throughout Arts & Crafts pieces contemporary to the production of the items shown. Nonetheless, I assume that the tea set above is manufactured by (then) modern processes, machine milled and turned, and therefore could not be described as strictly Arts & Crafts in nature. Would anyone corroborate or refute me? IP: Logged |
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Dale Posts: 2132 |
posted 10-28-2008 11:30 PM
The type of designs shown in these pieces were familiar from the numerous Scandavian American publications of the period. The 'Nordisk Familjabok' used them extensively. It was available in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. The old halls of Sons of Norway, Svea Soner, Svithiod etc used them as decoration. The Vestheim Museum in Decorah IA has a lot of jewelry in this style. The curators admit they can't tell what was made in Norway and what was made in Iowa. There is a large collection of these books and designs at the Swedish Pioneer Historical Society, located at Nord Park Unverity (Foster and Kedzie) in Chicago. It is unusual to see these made anywhere east of Chicago. Most is from the area Chicago to SF and northwards. Because of Pagan assoications, Lutheran churches almost never used these motifs. [This message has been edited by Dale (edited 10-28-2008).] IP: Logged |
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Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 |
posted 10-29-2008 07:11 PM
It was a trick question--I didn't ask if it was arts and crafts STYLE. The dark truth is that most arts and crafts silver shops used spinning (which is in fact a HAND process, aided by a machine) to lower their costs. Tiffany & Co. in fact would have made this set largely by hand, and style aside it clearly falls into the return to handmade objects that characterize the arts and crafts movement. Gustav Stickley actually wrote up Paulding Farnham in THE CRAFTSMAN, praising his designs. IP: Logged |
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Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 |
posted 10-29-2008 07:12 PM
So no one's tried to guess what piece of enameled silver this curator feels he's missing from "his" collection. IP: Logged |
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ellabee Posts: 306 |
posted 10-30-2008 10:29 PM
I've been wanting to guess, but my ignorance is too vast. How about some hints? (time period, or type of object...) Is the centennial part of the hint, or is it simply that the centennial observance has made a little bit more $ available for acquisitions? IP: Logged |
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Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 |
posted 10-31-2008 08:42 AM
Hint: what do the Gorham and Tiffany pieces in my above posts have in common? IP: Logged |
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ellabee Posts: 306 |
posted 10-31-2008 10:51 AM
What do they have in common? Enameling, and design inspired by one foreign design tradition but so "reimagined" that the result ends up looking like something else entirely? I'm going to reflect on this a little more. IP: Logged |
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jersey Posts: 1203 |
posted 10-31-2008 02:00 PM
Happy Halloween Mr. Dietz! Just a witchy guess. Is it that all belong to the Ballantine Family? Am I going out on a broom here? The missing piece? Perhaps a tray to hold the set with the vase for breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea? Perhaps a waste/slop bowl? Enjoy the day, I'm recovering from an eye infection.
[This message has been edited by jersey (edited 10-31-2008).] IP: Logged |
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Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 |
posted 10-31-2008 09:28 PM
The Viking set didn't have a tray, and, alas, none of these belonged to anyone in Newark. The clue is the enamel. I guess my obsession is more personal curatorial...What great enameled things did Tiffany make that might compare with the 1877 Gorham vase? IP: Logged |
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jersey Posts: 1203 |
posted 11-01-2008 10:04 AM
Well Rhett, the Magnolia vase come to mind! Jersey IP: Logged |
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Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 |
posted 11-03-2008 06:24 PM
I guess this must have been more obscure than I thought. I was actually thinking of the silver-gilt and enameled punch cups and butter-fly shaped napkin clips from the Mackay service, 1878, made for silver bonanza king John Mackay (or, more accurately, for his wife, Marie Louise). Mackay discovered the Comstock Lode, the largest silver strike in America, and forever changed the way American silver was made--with American metal. Here's a citation from an on-line story about the Mackays' silver: John W. Mackay (1831-1902) commissioned Tiffany and Company of New York to design and produce a silver service for his wife Marie-Louise. The result was a unique 1250 piece set of sterling silver dinner and dessert service for twenty-four completed in 1878. Charles Grosjean of Tiffany designed the service and Edward C. Moore supervised the project. Charles Carpenter in his volume "Tiffany Silver" notes that as the largest, the grandest, the most elegantly ornate and most famous set of its time, the Mackay service epitomized the sumptuous dining table of Victorian America. All I could find a picture for was one of the tureens: IP: Logged |
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ellabee Posts: 306 |
posted 11-06-2008 02:40 AM
There are quite a few images of pieces in the service at this site on [<gone from the imternet> mines.unr.edu/museum/silver_collection.html] The Mackay Family Silver. Century of Splendor by Charles Venable has some photos of a few pieces in the service as well. I dimly remember butter pat plates, but thought they were in a Japanesque style, which doesn't seem to fit with the example in this thread or the pieces shown at the link. IP: Logged |
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Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 |
posted 11-06-2008 11:05 AM
Those butter pats, as I recall, were from the Ferber service, which was of this period but came from Gorham. In fact, the Ferber service might have been shown, along with the Mackay service by Tiffany, at the Paris exposition in 1878. There was great stuff, but no enameling in the Ferber service. Charles Carpenter had a whole page of the Mackay enameled pieces in his 1980 book on Tiffany silver. IP: Logged |
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Richard Kurtzman Moderator Posts: 768 |
posted 11-06-2008 11:28 AM
Photos of the punch cups and napkin clips can be found in the January 20, 1998 Sotheby's Catalog of the Masco Collection. They are lots 24, 25 and 26. The two lots of cups did not meet the reserve. IP: Logged |
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Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 |
posted 11-06-2008 11:39 AM
The punch cups ended up in a private collection formerly in NJ, and in the Tiffany archives (I'm pretty sure). The napkins clips were purchaed by a consortium of museums and split up around the US (I'm pretty sure). I did not miss the boat, because in the same sale I was purchasing the great inlaid silver Tiffany & Co. charger from the Centennial Exhibition that I dealt with in another topic thread in my forum. IP: Logged |
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ellabee Posts: 306 |
posted 11-07-2008 11:09 PM
Ah. The Ferber service; thanks for that correction, Ulysses. Was the Ferber service anywhere near the scale of the Mackay service? Who were the Ferbers? Who designed the Ferber service? IP: Logged |
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Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 |
posted 11-08-2008 10:56 AM
The Furber (sorry, misspelled) service was pretty much on the scale of the Mackay service,but numerically about half--740 pieces. Not as much flatware, which accounted for much of the Mackay numbres, and was aesthetically much more diverse. It was a mixture of splendid neo-grec stuff and Japanesque designs, all produced in the 1870s. IP: Logged |
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