Current and coming

Magazine Antiques, April, 1996 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

Silver in colonial Massachusetts

For more than six decades Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, has been a center for research concerning early American silver. The notes of the pioneering silver scholar Francis Hill Bigelow (1859-1933) were acquired in the 1930s and amplified by John Marshall Phillips (1905-1953). The probing work accomplished by these two scholars is the foundation for a definitive forthcoming volume by Patricia E. Kane entitled Colonial Massachusetts Silversmiths and Jewelers: A Biographical Dictionary Based on the Notes of Francis Hill Bigelow and John Marshall Phillips. In celebration of the completion of this project, the Yale University Art Gallery has mounted an exhibition of more than 160 extraordinary pieces of silver entitled First Masters of American Silver: The Craft of the Silversmith in Colonial Massachusetts, on view until July 21. It is accompanied by a smaller show, comprising some sixty-five objects, which is entitled Art and Society in Massachusetts, 1620-1776. The latter provides a historical setting for the silver exhibition and includes furniture, metalware, ceramics, paintings, and textiles.

Boston was the first center for jewelry making and goldsmithing in British North America. More than 163 goldsmiths and 38 jewelers worked there from the mid-seventeenth century to the Revolution, most of them native born and locally trained. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries foreign-born craftsmen, as well as those native to other locations in New England, traveled to Boston to apprentice in the various trades allied with silver and jewelry making.

The earliest Boston goldsmiths, John Hull (1624-1683) and Robert Sanderson St. (1608-1693), were instrumental in operating the first mint in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and were largely responsible for training the next generation of goldsmiths. Documents reveal that even in the mid-seventeenth century there was a specialized division of labor in the goldsmith's shop. Hollow ware made during this early period follows stylistic innovations from England and was decorated with flat chasing, pouncing, floral engraving, and pricked or engraved monograms.

At the end of the seventeenth century, the colony's population and economy were rapidly expanding, and the number of goldsmiths rose to twenty-one. Of these, more were foreign born because of an increase in immigration. The newly rich mercantile class commissioned objects with sumptuous decoration and elaborately worked coats of arms. Floral motifs used to decorate silver became more realistic and flat-chased embellishments attained greater depth.

In Boston the trades of jeweler and goldsmith were intertwined. Jewelers retailed goldsmiths' work, particularly flatware and hollow ware, and goldsmiths sold jewelry. Such specialties as engraving, diesinking, and enameling were frequently executed by clockmakers and watchmakers. The sophisticated engraving on surviving pieces attests to the high level of skill Boston craftsmen had achieved. From the Continent by way of England came the highly ornate floral style of chasing that was best executed by the European-trained engraver William Rouse (1639-1704/5).