Silversmiths to the Nation
Thomas Fletcher & Sidney Gardiner: 1808-1842
By Donald L. Fennimore and Ann K. Wagner
Antique Collectors' Club
Easthampton, Massachusetts
$95

Companion to a traveling exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through May 4, this lavishly illustrated book is the first in-depth study of the silversmithing firm of Thomas Fletcher and Sidney Gardiner which, in the early years of the American republic, produced works of remarkable quality and grandeur. Founded in Boston in 1808 the outfit relocated to Philadelphia in 1811 where Fletcher (who oversaw the creative, marketing and financial aspects) and Gardiner (who had the silversmithing skills to oversee the manufactory) went on to become preeminent figures in 19th-century America, a link between small artisan shops, such as Paul Revere's, and larger luxury goods manufacturers like Tiffany, later in the century.

The opening chapters place the achievements of the Fletcher & Gardiner firm in the context of the role of bustling Philadelphia in the early republic (by Cathy Matson) and the precious metals trades in that city during the same time period (by Deborah Dependahl Waters). More than 100 densely annotated captioned examples in silver are illustrated, including presentation vessels that were used to celebrate military and civic heroes, to domestic, ecclesiastical and personal items with neoclassical ornamentation, along with a rare group of 35 related drawings in the Met's collection.

Principal authors Donald L. Fennimore and Ann K. Wagner, both of Winterthur Museum & Country Estate, one of the exhibition venues, write: "Fletcher and Gardiner revolutionized the significance of the precious metals in the United States as a medium of public appreciation and celebration of heroes. Silver and gold had a long and honorable tradition as a visible, tangible and permanent record of significant events and people in this country. Even so, the monumental silver and gold artifacts that the Fletcher & Gardiner firm was to make in response to government and private commissions for the heroes of the War of 1812 had no precedent or counterpart in their grand scale, patriotic imagery, complicated fabrication, or multiple stylistic allusions. As such, the partnership gave shape to an era of American silver that spoke grandly to American's self-perception and the heightened sense of pride for those who represented the nation in the international as well as domestic arena."