Day 256 - Silver candlestick and snuffers

 

July 22, 2021

Gallery 704 lives up to the promise suggested by my last entry. Its glass cases contain displays of stoneware, earthenware, glass, pewter, and silver items made in the colonies and the early republic during the 1700s and early 1800s. Interestingly, there are also cases of imported luxury items- ornate, highly rococo silver imported from England from the 1740s through the 1770s and English and Chinese ceramic and porcelain bowls made for the American market in the  decades after the American Revolution. It's interesting to see English plates and jugs decorated with images of George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette entering New York City, and Boston Harbor.  Evidently, British ceramics and porcelain manufacturers did not hold a lasting grudge about having lost the 13 colonies - maybe the latter were too much of a drain on money and manpower anyway. Or maybe capitalist instincts outweighed political ones: The manufacturers were happy to incorporate whatever design elements sold in the American market. 

The domestic pieces vary in their degree of refinement. I'm struck by how unsophisticated the designs on the stoneware and earthenware objects are - they're decorated with incised or painted flowers or birds and look pretty naive. But then, I read that most such objects weren't decorated at all, and that seems completely reasonable, given that the objects were intended to be, above all, functional. In contrast, colonial silversmiths produced some really lovely pieces. Silver is, by definition, a luxury item for which design is all-important. A placard explains that native-born silversmiths learned new techniques from their immigrant counterparts.  It notes, further,,  that the colonists highly prized their household silver, and both craftsmen and the broader public kept up on the latest trends in England and the Continent. 

I was initially going to write about two tea caddies, one ceramic and one silver, that illustrate the gap in sophistication between craftsmen working in the different media. But then I saw this beautiful silver-and-steel set that, according to the caption, includes a candleholder, snuffers, and a douter. What is a douter? I had to look that one up - it's an antiquated term for a snuffer. So the caption seems quite redundant!  The set was made by Joseph Lownes in Philadelphia between 1790 and 1810.  The candlestick, about 6 inches tall, is okay: It has a narrow mid-section and a fluted top part and base. But what I love are the two snuffers, perfect in their geometrical simplicity and luster. 

I read that in the years after the American Revolution, Neoclassicism was the dominant aesthetic, partly because the style evoked the Roman republic.  The clean lines of this Neoclassical set make it look strikingly modern - you can imagine Georg Jensen designing similar candle snuffers - and maybe that's why it's so attractive to me.  I was about to write that the pieces have a timeless appeal,  but of course that's not so - they were in fashion once, they were in fashion again, but they won't always be in fashion. This is just an instance where the fashion of the times and my own taste converge.