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 SMP Silver Salon Forums
 American Silver before sterling
 To repair or not.
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| Author | Topic: To repair or not. |
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ahwt Posts: 2334 |
posted 03-08-2006 11:51 AM
  
The current issue of The Magazine Antiques has an article about William Faris and his shop designs by the co-editor of the book “The Diary of William Faris – The Daily Life of an Annapolis Silversmith” The book on page 71 shows a sugar basin or urn from the late 1790s that has a bent finial with an ill-fitting lid. This same urn is shown in the February 1977 issue of The Magazine Antiques in an article on William Farris by Joan Sayers Brown and at that time the urn was under the care of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The finial was bent and the lid was ill-fitting in 1997 and appears to still be in that state. William Faris earned a good part of his income repairing silver objects of Annapolis residents and I think he would be the first to suggest that a repair is needed. If Mr. Faris had no hesitation in making repairs why should the current custodian hesitate? [This message has been edited by ahwt (edited 03-08-2006).] IP: Logged |
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argentum1 Posts: 602 |
posted 03-08-2006 12:13 PM
Museum curators are like Doctors 'Do No Harm'. Unless an item is in danger of being lost by damage it is best to leave it alone. You might address Mr.Deitz,who is one of the SMP Moderators, his stand on the matter. He is a recognized museum curator and knows his charges quite well. IP: Logged |
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Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 |
posted 03-08-2006 05:06 PM
Museums are constantly making repairs, doing conservation and even doing restoration to objects, all depending on several factors. First of all, how disfiguring is the damage? Is there a danger of further deterioration if the damage is left untreated (such as a lead solder repair to silver). In the case of silver, the question we ask is: does the damage represent a significant aspect of the piece's history (i.e. something used by a child?). Even just annoying little dents in the body of an object might not be worth removing, because silver repair always subjects the object to substantial risk because of reheating, etc. I think curators are disinclined to make repairs that are not essential because there is always a risk and always a cost involved; risks need to be weighed and costs balanced and prioritized. IP: Logged |
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ahwt Posts: 2334 |
posted 03-08-2006 09:31 PM
The advice given by Ulysses certainly has merit and I do not know what it would take to repair the urn or if there is some historical reason to keep it in such a poor state of repair. I just keep thinking of poor Mr. Faris looking down seeing his once beautiful urn and thinking “What have they done to my urn and why will they not repair it?” IP: Logged |
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Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 |
posted 03-11-2006 09:52 AM
Since I couldn't see the image in the book to which you referred (our library doesn't have it, since it is unlikely that his silver will show up in New Jersey, tho' not impossible...) I can't judge how much the damage to said urn bothers me. You do raise an interesting metaphysical question, as to whether silversmiths saw their production as "art" or simply as "product." I'm afraid I cynically suspect that the producers rarely cared about their work once it was paid for and out of the shop. But then I don't think like an 18th-century person anyway! IP: Logged |
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