FEATURES ARCHIVE

How and when did you develop your passion for silver?
I've had a lifelong interest in the history of architecture, and I like to think of silver as pieces of portable architecture. Silver has followed the same stylistic trends as architecture, but in miniature. I think there's something intimate about an art object, like a gold snuffbox, that you can hold in your hand. I do recall an early pivotal moment, when I was interning at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. The museum was rounding out its American paintings galleries with decorative arts and furniture. I remember seeing a silver Philadelphia coffee pot, and perceiving it as a piece of Rococo period sculpture. The internship inspired me to pursue my graduate studies in decorative arts at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware.

If you could have tea with any of history's greatest silversmiths, who would you choose and why?
I would choose Edward Moore, the design genius of the aesthetic movement who brought American silver to the international platform for the first time. Tiffany & Co. exhibited his designs at the Paris Exposition of 1878 and walked off with almost every single medal. Until the Civil War, American silver slavishly followed traditional European historical styles. But in the 1870s, Moore introduced radical new designs, highly influenced by Japanese metal-smithing, and worked with mixed metals in ways never before seen in the West. He was a friend of English design reformer Christopher Dresser, and I imagine tea with Moore and Dresser would be a highly bohemian experience!

In February, you attended Christie's groundbreaking Yves Saint Laurent sale in Paris. What was it like to witness such a historically important event?
Aside from the fact that the pre-sale viewing attendance at the Grand Palais numbered nearly 35,000 people, it was an incredibly exciting and unifying moment for the art world. The three day sale set world records left and right (including for Silver), and it was also the highest grossing sale ever held in Europe. I was personally struck to find that such rarified examples of German Renaissance silver could have such an unprecedented and profound mass appeal. The sale and viewings were attended not by fashion-world icons, but by serious people who were reverential of YSL's taste; they were there to see what appealed to his eye, and what this legendary figure would select with a virtually unlimited budget.

Silver is one of the most widely popular collecting fields among experienced connoisseurs and emerging collectors alike. What is it about silver that makes it so collectable?
From a decorative point of view, silver has the power to light up a room. It has the same reflective qualities of a mirror. In terms of historic value, in pre-industrial times, the value of the metal used in these objects was higher than the cost of the labor that went into creating them. So silver has traditionally been a symbol of conspicuous consumption--a display of silver was analogous to showing your guests a quantity of your currency.

I also think that collectors who love precise details about the history of an object can take great pleasure in a piece of silver. Virtually all of our silver is hallmarked, giving collectors the ability to pin down the date and location of manufacture. The maker's mark identifies the silversmith, and the coat-of-arms or monogram often leads us to identify the original owner of the piece. Each piece of silver carries with it an exceptionally rich amount of information, especially considering that the object may be 300 or 400 years old and completely unrecorded until we see it at Christie's.

What silver-related literature is on your night table right now?
I'm just starting to read the exhibition catalogue from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's recent exhibition, Art of the Royal Court: Treasures in Pietre Dure from the Palaces of Europe.

You make frequent appearances on America's famed television show, Antiques Road Show, in which people present antique family heirlooms to be appraised by a specialist. Have you ever encountered something truly exceptional?
I once came across an extremely rare silver cream jug by the distinguished 18th century Boston silversmith Jacob Hurd. Engraved with unusual landscape scenes, it was one of only five known to exist - and four of them were in museum collections. I appraised the piece at $30,000-50,000, and the owner was absolutely elated, but did not express any interest in selling. Soon after that episode aired on television, I received a call from another woman who had seen the show and claimed she had an identical jug. Although I was skeptical, I agreed to take a look. Indeed - she had what turned out to be the sixth known Jacob Hurd scenic cream jug. We offered it at auction with a preliminary estimate of $30,000-50,000, and it ended up selling for $90,000!

If you had a free afternoon and could immerse yourself in the silver collection of any museum in the world, where would you go?
There's something special about seeing silver in its original setting. For me, the ultimate afternoon would be seeing a treasury of one of the great country houses in England, such as Woburn Abbey, which has magnificent silver by Paul de Lamerie. I would also enjoy a visit to the famous Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, which retains its original Torah bell-tops made by Myer Myers of New York in the mid 18th century. Seeing silver in the setting for which it was intended is a reminder of how it can be an integral part of a defining architectural and cultural fabric.