Philadelphia Antiques Show 2019

117 Curator’s Essay such as the teapot marked by Charles Westphal (Fig. j). The Dietrich and McNeil collections of early American silver complemented each other, and happily they became part of the museum’s holdings two years apart, the McNeil Americana Collection in 2005 and the Dietrich American Foundation’s silver in 2007. McNeil and Dietrich also collaborated to purchase the communion silver from the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia, which had been on loan to the museum since 1911 and was unsuccessfully put up for auction by the church in 1999. 23 Since the 1990s, the field of American decorative arts has continued to evolve, with the canon expanded to include work by a more diverse group of artisans. Following Garvan’s retirement as curator in 1989, successor curators Jack L. Lindsey (from 1990 to 2003) and I (beginning in 2004) have developed and expanded the American silver collection into new areas, while maintaining a focus on its historical core. The number of twentieth-century objects has grown significantly, and the collection now includes silver brooches by William Spratling and Alexander Calder (Fig. k) that were owned by Sarah Carr d’Harnoncourt and donated by her daughter, Museum Director Anne d’Harnoncourt. Contemporary silver like Bernard Bernstein’s Havdalah Set of 1993–98 has been acquired by Elisabeth R. Agro, The Nancy M. McNeil Curator of Modern and Contemporary Crafts and Decorative Arts (beginning in 2006). 24 From the 1960s onward, scholars have recognized the contributions of African American artists to the history of American art, and in 1994 Lindsey was able to purchase a rare 1841 cup by the Afro-Caribbean silversmith Peter Bentzon, who worked in Philadelphia at different times during his career. 25 A 2001 exhibition celebrating the museum’s 125th anniversary was an opportunity to attract gifts such as a monumental urn made in 1857 by R. &W. Wilson for presentation to John Welsh. 26 More recently, an effort has been made to expand the representation of women silversmiths, with works such as a rare teaspoon marked by Hannah Walker of Philadelphia in 1816–17 and a candy dish with enamel and rock crystal ornament made by Rebecca Cauman of Boston in 1927. Long a champion of Latin American art, the museum has held two exhibitions in which silver was a major component: Tesoros/Treasures/Tesouros: The Arts in Latin America, 1492–1820 in 2006 and Journeys to NewWorlds: Spanish and Portuguese Colonial Art in the Roberta and Richard Huber Collection in 2013. An 1800–1810 sauceboat (Fig. l) by Mexican silversmith José María Rodallega was acquired in 2013 as a partial gift from D. Albert Soeffing. Some of the earliest silver-plating companies in the United States operated in Philadelphia, now represented in the collection by a fused-plate mug of 1810–26 by George Armitage and an electroplated pitcher of 1857 by Hatting, Meyer &Warne. 27 Since 2010, Beverly Wilson, a Park House Guide at the museum, has donated about one hundred examples of later nineteenth-century American silver, including a Japanese-inspired bowl (Fig. m) made by Peter L. Krider of Philadelphia, that have greatly enriched the range of forms and makers from this important period in silver manufacturing. Recent purchases have focused on filling gaps in the historical narrative of American silver. A mug by the partnership of John Allen and John Edwards of Boston is an example of late seventeenth-century Boston silver modeled on a ceramic form. 28 A hot water kettle on stand made in 1839–51 by William Forbes of New York was the museum’s first example of hollowware in the Gothic Revival style, purchased with the Richardson Fund. 29