Daniel Smith and Robert Sharp of London made this classically inspired, gilded silver cup in 1776, one of a series made for winners of the Richmond Races held in Yorkshire.

 

Treasure Quest

Great Silver from Colonial Williamsburg

By Karla Klein Albertson

WILLIAMSBURG, VA. - Great collections deserve great exhibition spaces. With this in mind, Colonial Williamsburg's Dewitt Wallace Gallery, where the permanent holdings in English and American antiques are displayed, has transformed a one-time storage area into the Mary Jewett Gaiser Silver Gallery. The first themed exhibition, "Treasure Quest: Great Silver Collections from Colonial Williamsburg," focuses on examples from some of the important assemblages put together by individual collectors and later donated to the museum.

Senior curator for metals John Davis explains, "We're acknowledging the fact that we are much indebted to a number of very generous collectors who have helped to shape and broaden our holdings. Any great institutional collection is as much about people who have helped build it as it is about the objects themselves. Institutions don't buy with the same degree of focus and passion which individuals may have for particular forms or types of decoration."

One collector shining in the new gallery spotlights will be John A. Hyman, who gathered together comprehensive study collections of useful forms, such as skewers, marrow scoops, punch ladles, serving forms, as well as drinking vessels and tea and coffee services. One exquisite example given to the museum by this collector is a Scottish silver teapot made around 1759-1760 by Edward Lothian and Patrick Robertson and beautifully decorated with motifs based on Chinese stoneware prototypes. Hyman assembled the finest representations of each type of object, and his collections couldn't be duplicated today for any amount of money," points out the curator.

One of the most spectacular exhibits is an elaborate epergne and matching raised plateau ornamented with fruits, flowers, and figural masks, which was donated by collector Mary Jewett Gaiser, for whom the gallery is named. The centerpiece, made by George Wickes of London, 1742-43, for wealthy Irishman Joseph Leeson, occupies its own specially-constructed case, so it can be viewed in the round.

Gaiser was raised in Ogdensburg, N.Y., graduated from Wellesley College in 1923, and later moved to Spokane, Wash., where her husband was in the lumber industry. She began collecting cream jugs of silver and ceramic, now on view in the silver gallery and in the "Revolution in Taste" exhibit elsewhere in the museum. Actively buying during World War II, the couple's purchase of the Wickes epergne prevented its loss at sea, when the boat scheduled to take it back to England was torpedoed en route.

Turning to yet a third collector honored by the gallery's inaugural exhibition, John Davis comments, "Lowry Dale Kirby was a Nashville pediatrician who formed the finest collection of Sheffield plate in the world - over a thousand pieces - and gave that to us in his will in 1991."

Sheffield silverplate, a popular Eighteenth Century technique which cut costs by fusing silver to a core of copper, was used to make a variety of forms from delicate candelabra to extensive supper services. Kirby set out to acquire an example of everything shown in Frederick Bradbury's classic History of Old Sheffield Plate, first published in 1912, and exceeded beyond all expectations. The gallery opening now allows hundreds of pieces from the collection, which previously languished in behind-the-scenes storage areas, to be put on view.

The displays in the Gaiser Gallery also look back to be foundation of the collection by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who in 1929 was given a London silver spoon of 1636 with the initials "RK." which may be the monogram of Richard Kemp, an early resident of Jamestown.

Davis adds, "Mr Rockefeller helped to enlarge the collection in a number of ways. In 1938, he acquired a number of important pieces of English silver and furniture from the collection of William Randolph Hearst, and a New York dealer brokered the sale of these objects, which include our silver chandelier and sconces from the royal collections, a large wine fountain made for the Duke of Newcastle, and a trio of Seventeenth Century cups. Much of the Hearst silver went to the Governor's Palace where they realized they needed grand objects to complete the effect."

"The English made, used and enjoyed silver more than any other country in the world," concludes the curator. "Silver provides an essential commentary on how people lived and how they chose to present themselves to society. Now, with nearly 1,200 square feet of exhibition space in the new Gaiser Silver Gallery, we have the opportunity to explain to our visitors what made silver so desirable through the ages, how to `read' a piece of silver, and how to identify silver makers and different types of silver plating."

Williamsburg installation designer Rick Hadley, the man responsible for the overall look of a the new silver space recently described his contribution to this ambitious project.':There was the aesthetic challenge of retrofitting what was essentially a basement storage area with all its inherent architectural engineering issues and turning it into a beautiful gallery." The process began with curator John Davis showing Hadley the objects he had chosen to display. During design development, Hadley remembers, "I realized that the room almost needed to disappear. We started scaling back the `oh wow' of the architecture, so that the silver would be the `oh wow'."

Once the architectural planning was underway, Hadley began to consider how to present the collections of exquisite yet highly-reflective silver objects within the space. "When you hold these pieces and play with them, you can work out at what level are they best seen. Is 36 inches or 18 inches off the floor better? How do you balance the cases and still have them be a flexible environment for future exhibition changes?"

As with the architecture, cases and backgrounds were carefully chosen to "disappear," while letting the silver shine through. In order to test special effects, full-scale mock-ups of some cases were created to text fabrics and lighting.

In order to create this sort of "invisible installation," the designer drew on in-house staff as well as outside experts. Hadley explained, "Within a given project, we determine how best to use our staff because we have so many specialists here. For example, we have our own armature or exhibition mount maker who builds all the nifty brass and steel gadgets to hold things in space and make them appear to float. What we need that we can't do in-house, we contract. Components can come in as contractual units, like exhibition case doors, or the lighting for this project. This silver gallery involved contract architects and engineers that I chose, including a lighting designer based in New York that I've been very comfortable working with over the years."

The planning process also involved critically examining related installations at other museums according to Hadley. "I do look at a lot of projects similar to the one I'm working on currently. You try to avoid the pitfalls of projects at other institutions. Last year, I had a chance to see some of the decorative arts displays at the Getty. From a design and production standpoint, it was incredible. I was so intrigued by the technology of the displays, In particular, I've been on a quest for the perfect exhibition case glass door for years. I finally found someone who makes case doors that disappear, so visitors don't get caught up in the details I'm trying not to draw attention to. Their mechanisms are so engineered that they suited our needs perfectly."

Collectors also should be pleased with the innovative lighting in the new Gaiser Gallery. Hadley discovered, "On hollowware like drinking vessels or punchbowls, so much of the detail - the strapwork, the chasing - is underneath, where it's difficult to see. So we're incorporating hundreds of fibre optic lights which come from below, rather like stage lighting, and illuminate the underside of some of these pieces of silver. This technique also mitigates the shadows common in this type of exhibit where the light usually comes from high above, and anything that sticks out casts a long shadow."

Treasure Quest: Great Silver Collections from Colonial Williamsburg" continues through December 1999. The DeWitt Wallace Gallery is open 11 am to 6 pm daily, except Tuesdays. Telephone 757/22407724 or 800-HISTORY.