|
This major research effort will undoubtedly become the standard reference for a generation - possibly much longer. Nearly a century in the making, this monster project has been brought to
fruition by Yale's Patricia Kane with the help of most of today's (and many of yesterday's) leading scholars in the field: including important essays by Gerald and Barbara Ward. While this monumental tome is 1265
pages long and contains 650 illustrations, the Dictionary's most impressive feature will be the listing of all currently known examples by each maker
- a catalogue raissone of Massachusetts colonial silver.
From the Dust Jacket:
This massive biographical dictionary offers the most thorough study of a group of early American craftsmen
published to date. It contains biographies of 296 silversmiths and jewelers who worked in Massachusetts prior to the American Revolution, records of more than 6000 examples of their work, and illustrations of 424 of
their marks. It completes and amplifies research undertaken at Yale since the 1930s when John Marshall Phillips (1905-1953), a leading scholar of American silver, acquired the research notes of Francis Hill Bigelow
(1859-1933), a pioneer in the field. There are brief biographical notes on 93 craftsmen in allied trades, including watchmakers, clockmakers, and engravers, and a section on individuals previously misidentified as
Massachusetts silversmiths, as well as essays on silversmiths and their tools, Boston silversmithing and jewelry making trades, and other Massachusetts silversmiths. A glossary of terms relating to tools and craft
techniques and 193 additional illustrations complete the book. "No other area of American decorative arts has been so thoroughly and intimately documented. This
masterful accomplishment provides a corrected view of the previous scholarship and a source book that will well serve the next generations of gold, silver, and jewelry historians."
-Martha Gandy Fales, author and silver and jewelry historian
PATRICIA E. KANE is Curator of American Decorative Arts at Yale University Art Gallery, author of numerous articles and reviews on the decorative arts, and author, editor, or contributor to ten books and exhibition
catalogs. |
