Author Description

The Cleveland Museum of Art's outstanding collection of American silver is reproduced and thoroughly documented in this important scholarly catalogue. Since its opening in 1916, the Museum has been the repository of an impressive trove of colonial silver gathered initially by Hollis French, an avid collector and scholar of the silversmiths' art. Represented are examples of most of the masters working in New England before 1820, as well as selections from the Arts and Crafts period and of contemporary silver. French's early research on the marks of the colonial silversmiths is extended here by Phillip M. Johnston and a team of curators at The Cleveland Museum of Art, who, aided by modern electronic metallurgical analysis, establish the authenticity of makers' marks and the history of individual pieces. An introduction by Henry Hawley, a description of each object, a careful photographic record of all makers' marks, and a detailed metallurgical analysis make this an indispensable reference for collectors and scholars of American silver.