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Pairpoint Manufacturing Co. The seaport city of New Bedford, Massachusetts, once famous as a whaling center and featured as the home port in Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick, also hosted a thriving glass industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Foremost among its glass factories was the Mt. Washington Glass Works, originally founded in 1837 in South Boston (in the vicinity of a small hill known as “Mt. Washington”.) It relocated to [...] Click here to continue reading. THE LIVINGSTONS OF THE LIVINGSTON MANOR The Livingston dynasty is among the most important in American history. Members of the family settled in colonial New York in the seventeenth century and soon ranked among the patricians (their coat of arms is one of several represented in the capitol at Albany). Branches of the Livingston family were involved in major events throughout the past 300 years: members of the Continental Congress; signers of the Declaration [...] Click here to continue reading. Karl F. Leinonen Karl F. Leinonen was a Finnish born and trained silversmith. He came to Boston and was appointed master smith at the Handicraft Shop, which had been founded by A.A. Carey, president of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts. Leinonen later opened his own shop. He was one of only 7 silversmiths to be named a Medalist by the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts. Information courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc. Georg Jensen – Silversmith (Danish, 1866 to 1935) Georg Jensen was born on August 31, 1866 (the seventh of eight children) in Radvaad, Denmark, north of Copenhagen in the countryside. His father worked as a grinder at a knife factory, where Jensen also worked at a young age. His family recognized and encouraged young Georg’s artistic instincts, and when he was 14 the family moved to Copenhagen so he could be apprenticed to [...] Click here to continue reading. Jacob Hurd, Silversmith The son of Jacob and Elizabeth Tufts Hurd, Jacob Hurd was born in either 1702 or 1703. He was the most important and prolific silversmith of his generation, producing over 500 objects. Hurd received many of the most important commissions for public presentation objects and was the favored artisan among Boston’s elite. In addition to his work as a silversmith, Jacob Hurd was prominent in the Massachusetts militia, serving initially as [...] Click here to continue reading. Charles Stuart Harris (circa 1830-1918) Charles Harris began as a silverplater around 1850 and assumed the workshop of John Mark Harris (relationship unknown) in 1860 in London. By the 1870′s, Harris was renowned for his reproductions of 18th-century styles. Harris’ workshop was expanded in 1885 and 1897 by the acquisition of the manufactories of the Houle and Harris brothers, respectively, so that by 1900 C. H. Harris, Ltd. Sent more silver to the Assay [...] Click here to continue reading. Samuel Edwards (1705-1762) Samuel Edwards was the son of silversmith John Edwards (1671-1746) and the brother of Thomas Edwards (1701-1755), both also of Boston. Samuel received commissions from the General Assembly for presentation pieces, and he was appointed Assessor in 1760. Along with his brother Thomas and Jacob Hurd, he was one of the leading makers/sellers of silver in Boston. Information courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc. John Coney, Silversmith, 1655/56 to 1722. According to Patricia Kane, “John Coney was the leading Boston silversmith of his time, and he remains renowned for his craftsmanship today. Coney was the first American silversmith to be the subject of a major exhibition and monograph”. (Quoted in Colonial Massachusetts Silversmiths and Jewelers. New Haven, 1998.) Coney was apprenticed to Jeremiah Dummer, circa 1670. He had numerous apprentices, one of whom was the father of Paul [...] Click here to continue reading. Alexander (Sandy) Calder (1898-1976) Alexander Calder was born in Pennsylvania to a family of famous artists, his grandfather being Alexander Milne Calder (1846 to 1923), a sculptor, his father was Alexander Stirling Calder (1870 to 1945), also a sculptor, and his mother Nanette Lederer Calder was a painter. He began his studies in 1914 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, then he studied and worked in Paris for several years [...] Click here to continue reading. The Arts & Crafts Movement The principles of the Arts and Crafts movement were initially frontiered in England through the efforts of John Ruskin and William Morris. Ruskin was not a craftsman but an academic scholar at Oxford. He believed passionately that the Industrial Revolution would erode the English countryside by turning it into factory fields while relegating the skilled English craftsman to the status of a laborer. The battle cry of his movement, [...] Click here to continue reading. |
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