About the Book
*Accompanies the touring exhibition A Handsome Cupboard of Plate: Early American Silver in the Cahn Collection organized by, and starting at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts from December 1, 2012 - March 2013, moving onto the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, April 20, 2013 - November 3, 2013, the Missouri History Museum from November 23, 2013 - March 2, 2014 and finally to the The DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, Colonial Williamsburg, from May 3, 2014 - May 25, 2015 Strength in design and fineness of craftsmanship unify the early American domestic and presentation silver assembled by Paul and Elissa Cahn and published together for the first time. Beginning in Boston with a caudle cup marked by Jeremiah Dummer, America's first native-born silversmith, and objects from the shop of patriot silversmith Paul Revere, the book then focuses on New York, where a distinctive style reflecting the Dutch heritage of that region emerged, and afterward on Philadelphia, where generations of the Quaker Richardson family supplied goods of the "best sort, but plain."
Pride of place is given to the work of New York Jewish silversmith Myer Myers and his shop, including a presentation waiter made for Theodorus Van Wyck. Accompanying a touring exhibition of the Cahn collection, the book encapsulates some of the ethnic, religious, and political diversity of early America and sets the silver in its social and historical context
Table of Contents:
Foreword by Kaywin Feldman, Director and President, Minneapolis Institute of Arts The Cahn Collection of Early American Silver - An Appreciation by David L. Barquist, The H. Richard Dietrich Jr. Curator of American Decorative Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art A Handsome Cupboard of Plate: Early American Silver and Silversmiths - An Introductory Essay Catalogue I: Boston II: New York III: Philadelphia
About the Author :
Deborah Dependahl Waters is an independent historian of American decorative arts, specializing in silver and furniture of the Mid-Atlantic region. Since 1987 she has been a member of the part-time teaching faculty for the Parsons-Cooper-Hewitt M.A. Program in the History of Decorative Arts and Design, and is currently president of New York Silver Society, Inc. Following employment with Winterthur Museum, Library, and Garden (Winterthur, Delaware), Christie's New York, and the New York State Council on the Arts, she became Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Manuscripts at the Museum of the City of New York in 1986, an appointment she held until 2008. She is the editor and an author of Elegant Plate: Three Centuries of Precious Metals in New York City (2000), and a contributor to Art in the Empire City: New York, 1825 - 1861 (2000), and (2007), as well as lead author of The Jewelry and Metalwork of Marie Zimmermann (2011).
Review :
The exhibition features more than 50 pieces of silver, and the catalog highlights 38 of them with full descriptions, including maker, dates, marks, provenance, inscriptions, size, publications, exhibitions, and a history of the piece. They are organized by place-Boston, New York, or Philadelphia-and the photographs are large enough to show details. The 1768 Van Wyck waiter by Myer Myers is given a foldout page to display it at full size. There are plenty of notes and references, an index, and a well-written introduction to the collection that discusses makers, forms, styles, and marks. Maine Antique Digest
