Art and Mystery: Silversmiths in Colonial America

Presenters: Deborah Waters, David Barquist, and Janine Skerry, with Eike Schmidt.

In conjunction with the MIA organized traveling exhibition, "A Handsome Cupboard of Plate: Early American Silver from the Cahn Collection," guest speakers Deborah Dependahl Waters, David Barquist, and Janine Skerry will provide perspectives on silver craftsmanship in early America. Eike Schmidt will lead the discussion on this exhibition that features great examples of American silver from the Paul and Elissa Cahn collection and discuss craftsmen such as Myer Myers, "Patriot silversmith" Paul Revere, Jr., Jeremiah Dummer, and others. These artisans reflected the ethnic, religious, and political diversity of Colonial America--English, French, Dutch, Puritan, Huguenot, Reformed Dutch, Jew, Quaker, patriot, loyalist--and often assumed leadership roles within their civic or religious communities.

Waters is an independent scholar and guest curator of "A Handsome Cupboard of Plate;" Barquist is the H. Richard Dietrich, Jr. Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Skerry is curator of metals at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Eike Schmidt, PhD, is James Ford Bell Curator of Decorative Arts and Sculpture at the MIA.

Admission: $10; $5 for MIA members, free to members of the Decorative Arts Affinity Group.