posted 12-20-2001 08:46 PM            

The Marble collection, comprising 435 pieces by 166 silversmiths, was originally assembled by Miriam McClaren, a Pasadena matron who began collecting silver in the early 1920's. After spending time at the LA County Art Museum, Stanford University, and the Santa Barbara Art Museum, the items were donated to the Huntington in 2000 by her grand nephew, Peter Marble, instantly making the Huntington a major center for the study of American silver on the West Coast.

The catalog is, overall, a handsome and well-designed volume. The pages are well laid out, the typography intelligent, and the paper dull-finished (that's a good thing) and substantial. The volume begins with several small essays and then moves directly to the makers, grouped by state, interrupted between New York and Pennsylvania by an interesting essay on Philadelphia silversmiths by Beatrice Garvan. Each maker is represented by at least one piece and each entry gives his life and working dates, a picture and description of the piece, mark references, exhibition and publication history, and -- bless them -- a good sized picture of the mark. Following the makers there is a useful glossary with each term referenced to examples, a full bibliography, and an index. The items shown range from marrow scoops to mourning rings to tankards, tea sets, ladles, and spoons of every sort.

Now to the quibbles.

The images are quite handsome in their printing; rather than plain black and white halftones, they were done as duotones - black over silver - giving then a very rich look. Unfortunately, the pictures themselves are of variable quality, even allowing for the difficulty of shooting silver. Some are sparkling and clear, while others are dim and dingy and there is no consistency to the lighting or background. From what I gather in the introduction, they were shot over a number of years and suffer for it.

The information given each piece is adequate, but does not stand up against that found in Belden or in Buhler's catalogs of the Yale University and Boston Museum collections. Aside from the maker's dates and working locations, there is no biographical information given or references cited. The piece descriptions generally ignore the standard terms established by Winterthur and others -- is backward bent the same as down-turned? -- and are somewhat capricious -- the same shoulder form is sometimes termed round, sometimes flared, and sometimes not mentioned at all.

But even with that said, this is still a valuable new reference and not to be missed by anyone interested in American silver and its makers. And if you should ever have occasion to visit Southern California, don't miss the exhibition of this collection at the Huntington.

American Silver, 1700-1850; the Mrs. John Emerson Marble Colletion at The Huntington
ISBN 156474375-6
$80.00 (okay, a bit pricey, but given that it's less than a tenth the price of the last copy of Belden I saw, not bad!)
available from:
The Huntington Library
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
626-405-2100