Nantucket silver - Current and Coming - Nantucket Antiques Show - Brief Article

Magazine Antiques, August, 2002 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

August is a wonderful month to be on Nantucket, but for aficionados of the fine and decorative arts, the weekend of August 2 through 4 is a highlight. Nearly forty antiques dealers converge at the Nantucket High School for the annual Nantucket Antiques Show that benefits the Nantucket Historical Association, which organizes a loan exhibition to accompany the show. This is the antiques show's twenty-fifth year, or silver anniversary, and the historical association has appropriately mounted a loan exhibition of Nantucket silver. Entitled Nantucket Silver, it is on view at one of the association's properties, the Hadwen House on Main Street, until November 24. This is the perfect location for this show because William Hadwen was a merchant who retailed silver and other goods on Nantucket during the early nineteenth century.

The work of two silversmiths is highlighted in the show: John Jackson, who was working on the island by the mid-1750s, and Benjamin Bunker, who is thought to have apprenticed with Jackson and is Nantucket's first native-born silversmith.

The end of the eighteenth century was a period of economic hardship caused by the American Revolution. Instead of supporting local silversmiths, islanders seem to have purchased their silver from retailers, who in turn ordered from makers in urban New England centers such as Boston and Providence. For the most part, however, coin silver spoons were made locally.

Many of the island's residents were Quakers who shunned material excess yet made a great deal of money in the whaling industry and related enterprises. Silver was a way to protect accumulated wealth and was considered a sound investment, especially in uncertain economic times. Spoons, porringers, and cans are the most common surviving forms with Nantucket associations, and these make up the range of the exhibition.

There is no catalogue of this show.