All that glitters is not gold. Sometimes it’s silver.
Located in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Wrightsman Exhibition Gallery, British Silver, a small but stunning show, is easy to miss or simply walk through on the way to the Lehman Wing. This is unfortunate, especially since many of the items, crafted from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century, are on view here for the first time in several decades.
The eighty elegantly displayed and exquisitely crafted objects in this exhibit include elaborate narrative engravings, intricately designed dishes, ewers, and tankards, and Chinese porcelain with elaborate silver fittings. These pieces are mostly from the Metropolitan Museum’s magnificent permanent collection of British (read London) silver. They are supplemented by several important loans bearing the mark of Paul de Lamerie (1688-1751), the most important silversmith in eighteenth-century London. On view here are important pieces like his famous rococo coffeepot with whimsical abstract grotesque faces (1738) and his Maynard Dish (1736).
Silver was, of course, not totally about artistry. It was also about power. The heraldry. The flair. The show.
Responsible for jewels and precious metals, the Jewel Office of the royal household allocated silver services to British dignitaries based at foreign courts. Serving as a cultural touchstone, this opulent silver insured that ambassadors’ tables would lavishly reflect English wealth and power. Their dinner service typically included tureens, sauceboats, serving dishes, and cutlery for thirty-six guests. For example, official silver ordered for Sir Paul Methuen’s ambassadorial mission to Spain in 1714 included fruit dishes as well as casters, standard pieces of eighteenth-century table settings used for serving sugar, dry mustard, and pepper. These were engraved with the arms of George I, lest it be forgotten that Methuen represented the grandeur of the Crown.
British diplomats were also issued display silver that was not brought to table, but instead was arranged on a buffet both to display wealth and to impress. This too was emblazoned with the obligatory royal arms, given pride of place, for example, in a gilt sideboard dish (1717) by Lewis Mettayer that is on view. With a richly moulded border influenced by the style of the French court, it was probably issued by the Jewel Office to Joseph Addison for his role as Secretary of State.
If it was an important market for silversmiths, the self-mythologizing court did not support its own workshops. Artisans therefore turned to making precious objects for the growing merchant class. Since it was the coin of the realm, silver, of course, was a measure of a patron’s wealth, not merely symbolizing it, but literally embodying it. However, silver also served as a measure of taste, sophistication, and education. It was commissioned to celebrate achievements, and even to complement architecture.
Following the royal precedent, prosperous merchants and professionals had their silver adorned with heraldic engravings that inscribed connections between generations, flaunting stature and lineage. On view here are coats of arms engraved on silver salvers, bottles, boxes, and dishes. So ostentatious, yet so splendid.
Perhaps the most charming booty on display is the furniture and accessories designed for elaborate dollhouses, a fashion that originated in late seventeenth-century Holland. On view are miniature teapots, cups, saucers, cutlery, utensils, and candlesticks, mostly from the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. Sold in fashionable shops specializing in luxury items, these silver toys were the playthings not of children but of wealthy women.
In fact, silver furniture was not only to be found in miniature scale: the English market also embraced the French fashion of full-sized silver furniture. This trend is represented here by the baroque tripod table stand (1724-25) made of cast silver components by Simon Pantin.
Indeed, another focus of the exhibition is the contribution of the many artisans from the Continent, such as Pantin, working in England. Discouraged by guild regulations from registering their marks, their intricate works remain, for the most part, anonymous. They would have catered to the practice – shared by the merchant class and aristocracy alike – of ordering silver that reflected its owner’s experiences on the Continent.
Although he never left England, Sir Robert Walpole, who is regarded as the first Prime Minister of Great Britain, showed off his fashion chops by commissioning a pair of wine coolers for the dining room at Houghton Hall. Executed in the French style, these coolers were unusual in England. One thing is clear: British silver combined domestic and international taste and skill.
Expressive of prosperity, silver helped construct British identity. Of the connection to British colonialism and domination, nothing can be written here civilly. This issue is mostly ignored in the exhibit’s descriptive and contextualizing wall text. Unfortunately, there is no accompanying catalogue. Rumour has it that more of the Museum’s silver will be on display in 2014 in recognition of the 300th anniversary of The Personal Union, when the Hanoverians assumed the throne of England. But any significant re-evaluation must await the arrival of postcolonial studies to the party.
‘British Silver: The Wealth of a Nation’ was at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from 15 May 2012 to 20 January 2013.