PRESENTED IS A JAPANESE-INSPIRED STERLING SILVER AND OTHER METALS BOWL CREATED BY "WHITING
MANUFACTURING COMPANY" OF NEW YORK;
THE (1878-1879) CIRCA DATE OF PRODUCTION OF THE BOWL CAN SHED LIGHT ON ITS EXTRA-ORDINARY DESIGN
AND CRAFTSMANSHIP ONCE VIEWED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE PHASES OF AMERICAN JAPANESQUE SILVER
DEVELOPMENT.
THE EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN JAPANESQUE SILVER
ACCORDING TO CHARLES CARPENTER, THE USE OF JAPANESE ELEMENTS IN AMERICAN SILVER PRODUCED BY
TIFFANY, GORHAM AND WHITING MAY BE CATEGORIZED INTO THREE PERIODS:
i-THE FIRST PHASE (1871-1877) IS CHARACTERIZED BY ASYMMETRICALLY ARRANGED ENGRAVED OR APPLIED JAPANESE MOTIF ON A SHALLOW GROUND;
ii-THE SECOND PHASE IN THE AESTHETIC MOVEMENT (1877-1882) IS A STYLISTICALLY MATURE PERIOD, AND;
iii- THE LAST PHASE (1885-1890) IS A BROADLY NATURALISTIC PERIOD THAT DID NOT DIRECTLY APPROPRIATE
JAPANESE MOTIFS. DURING THIS PERIOD TIFFANY, GORHAM AND WHITING DESIGNERS ADOPTED A MORE
ECLECTIC APPROACH IN THEIR DESIGNS.
DEVELOPMENT OF JAPANESQUE AT WHITING
i- THE EARLY PHASE OF JAPANESQUE STYLE WARE FOR WHITING COVERED THE PERIOD BETWEEN 1874 AND 1880;
AND, AS NOTED IN THE 2010 RESEARCH BY ABIGAIL NOVA ON WHITING, WAS LIMITED IN SCOPE TO THE
"JAPANESE FLATWARE PATTERN" PATENTED BY CHARLES OSBORNE IN 1874;
ii- THE SECOND PHASE FOR WHITING (1880-1887) STARTED SOMEWHAT LATER THAN ITS COMPETITORS, TIFFANY
AND GORHAM, DUE TO A FIRE AT ITS ATTLEBORO FACTORY. THE SUBSEQUENT DECISION TO MOVE WHITING
OPERATIONS TO NEW YORK IN 1876, INTERESTINGLY ENOUGH, COINCIDED WITH THE PHILADELPHIA CENTENNIAL
EXPOSITION WHICH INTRODUCED AMERICA TO JAPANESE DECORATIVE ARTS;
WHITING JAPANESQUE SILVER OF THIS PHASE, AS NOTED BY ABIGAIL NOVA, WAS CHARACTERIZED BY:
---HAMMERED SURFACES, LESS TRADITIONAL FORMS THAT OFTEN IMITATED EASTERN VESSELS, AND BY A MORE
PLAYFUL APPROACH THAT RE-IMAGINED, RATHER THAN FAITHFULLY REPRODUCED, JAPANESE MOTIFS.
OVERALL, THE SCALES OF DECORATION IN RELATION TO THE FORM BECAME MORE INTEGRATED AND SUBTLE, AND
THE DESIGNS BECAME SIMPLIFIED AND UNIFIED.
---- THESE SCENES HAVE AN ALMOST PAINTERLY QUALITY, ESPECIALLY WHEN METALS OTHER THAN SILVER ARE
USED.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PRESENT ITEM
THE BOWL OFFERED HERE-- WITH ITS SHIMMERING HAMMERED SURFACE AND HARMONIOUSLY INTEGRATED
DECORATIONS, CLEARLY, FALLS INTO WHITING'S SECOND PHASE OF EXPERIMENTATION WITH JAPANESE MOTIFS;
WHAT SETS THIS ITEM APART FROM OTHER WHITING JAPANESE WARE OF THIS PERIOD, HOWEVER, IS THAT IT
ONLY BEARS A LETTER "C" MARK WITH NO ACCOMPANYING NUMBER;
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THERE BEING NO NUMBER CAN BE APPRECIATED IN LIGHT OF THE FACT THAT THE
PRACTICE OF NUMBERING HOWLLOWARE BY WHITING BEGAN ONLY IN 1880. HENCE, OUR CIRCA DATE
ATTRIBUTION OF (1878-1879);
GIVEN THAT THE MANUFACTURE OF THE PRESENT BOWL PRECEDED WHITING'S LINE OF JAPANESE SILVER BY AT
LEAST ONE YEAR; ITS DESIGN SHEDS LIGHT ON THE NOVEL APPROACH THAT WHITING NEEDED TO ADOPT TO
APPEAL TO THE AMERICAN MARKET;
TO COME UP WITH THIS PROTOTYPE WHITING'S DESIGNER(S) DREW ON THE POWER OF JAPANESE AESTHETIC TO CREATE AN INTIMATE PIECE THAT WOULD EVOKE A SENSE OF NOSTALGIA IN THE EMERGING AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS MOVING TO CITIES;
AND, IN SO DOING, CREATED A JAPANESE-INSPIRED SILVER THAT WAS UNIQUELY AMERICAN IN SPIRIT;
IN FACT, THE SAME ELEMENTS OF DESIGN, SEEN ON THIS BOWL, ARE SEEN ON LATER WHITING JAPANESE
HOLLOWARE MANUFACTURED IN THE THE EARLY 1880s;
ANOTHER CONTRIBUTING FACTOR TO THE AESTHETIC VALUE OF THIS BOWL IS THE NUMBER OF SCENES THAT
UTILIZE METAL MIXING AND APPLIQUE TECHNIQUES;
THERE ARE THREE SCENES DEPICTING A DRAGONFLY, A BEE AND A SPIDER, AND AN ADDITIONAL THREE APPLIED
HAND-CHASED SCENES OF BRANCHES, LEAVES TOGETHER WITH MIXED-METAL FRUITS WITH ENGRAVED
TENDRILS-- ALL, AGAINST A SHIMMERING HAND HAMMERED SURFACE;
UN-MONOGRAMMED;
EXCELLENT CONDITION, THE WHITING MARK NOT WELL-IMPRESSED-- POSSIBLY AS A RESULT OF BEING THE FIRST
ONE EVER STRUCK AGAINST A HAMMERED SURFACE. ALSO, BEARING THE NEW YORK RETAILER'S MARK:
THEODORE B. STARR;
DIAMETER: 8 5/8" ;
HEIGHT: 2 3/4" ;
WEIGHT: 22.9 TROY OUNCES
Our Guarantee:
i-
We believe that Ebay's money back guarantee suffices to ensure our
items' actual condition to correspond with the description provided in
the listing of the items. Hence, we feel any additional "return policy"
would be redundant;
ii- To protect our clients against buying
counterfeits as well as misrepresentations of provenance, however, we offer a
unique guarantee of authenticity with no time-limit constraints.
We
feel a guarantee of authenticity provides ironclad protection to Ebay
buyers; whereas, a "14, or even 30, day return policy" could fail
miserably in many cases involving antique silver.
Consider, for
the sake of argument, the case of an unsuspecting buyer who spends over
$10,000 on a silver item posed as original on the pretext that it was
acquired from the estate of a Russian family who had fled to Canada in
the first quarter of the twentieth century.
Upon receiving the
item, the purchaser would inspect it for condition issues, and once
satisfied would probably leave the seller a positive feedback comment.
Months,
if not years, later the purchaser decides to have the item appraised.
It would be then that he/she finds out about the actual provenance of
the item: an auction house whose description of the item explicitly
mentions "bearing questionable marks" for a Faberge work-master.
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