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Books on silver published by Umberto Allemandi of Turin.

Christina Bragaglia Venuti, Simonetta Brazza, Serenella Ferrari Benedetti and Luca Geroni
Argenti da Tavola e Posate
2005, Torino, Umberto Allemandi
264 pp 25 col. & 720 b/w illustrations
ISBN : 88 422 1332 2
Size: 305 x 210 mm
Soft cover
62 Euros

This is the catalogue of a very interesting group of Italian and other silver amassed during the last two centuries by the Counts of Coronini Cronberg di Gorizia, and now constitutes one of the most prestigious collections of this Foundation.

Perhaps surprisingly the cover photograph is by Elkington & Company in Birmingham, but it is simply an indication of the broad taste of the Coronini. This is not a collection per se, but a view of one Italian family’s silver purchased over several generations.

Included are nineteenth century silver pieces, produced in Moscow and Saint Petersburg for Count Eduard Cassini, chamberlain of Tsar Nicholas II; the trophies of the London silversmiths Hancock and Garrard, and various pieces of old Sheffield plate; French empire period salt-cellars by Biennais, as well as other later nineteenth-century French pieces; a range of Scandinavian pieces and some Swiss and Italian examples from the Imperial period further enrich the collection, giving testimony to the occasional gifts, as well as careful or spontaneous purchases, that were made by Guglielmo, the last Count of Coronini. Text in Italian.

Peter Fuhring
Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier, Un genio del Rococò 1695-1750
2000, Torino, Umberto Allemandi
508 pp with a frontispiece, 27 colour and 7 monochrome plates, 72 colour and 476 monochrome illustrations.
Hardbound, 2 volumes in a box.
ISBN: 88 422 0781 0
Size: 24 x 34 cm
232 Euros

An essential reference work on the rococo master of 18th-century French goldwork (b.1695), who commenced his career at the court of the Savoys and Louis XV. The author draws on archival information - the engravings and ornamental drawings published in 1734 for his decorative and everyday objects and architectural and interior designs, together with a few paintings - and offers a complete catalogue of his work. Questions of his style, influence and his importance in the decorative arts as well as the effect of his work on society are discussed. The final chapter offers biographies of Meissonier and his family and a study of his reception in the 18th and 19th century. With biographies of relevant artists/engravers, biography and an index of names. This book was the winner of the 1999 CINOA prize.

Franco Boggero and Farida Simonetti
L’argenteria Genovese del Settecento
2007, Torino, Umberto Allemandi
576 pp 16 col. & 1,160 b/w illustrations
ISBN : 88 422 1068 4
Size: 305 x 210 mm
Hardbound, Boxed
2007
See the Allemandi web site for price

Starting from the “Matricola de’ Maestri dell’Arte de’ Fraveghi della Città di Genova”, an index bound in vellum listing the master silversmiths enrolled during the period 1689-1710, this volume presents a systematic record of Ligurian gold and silversmiths active in the eighteenth century. Assereto, Croce, Pardes, Passano, Signorio, Cosso, Gianotto, Oxello: these are the most famous names among the fràveghi (silversmiths) working in the city of Genoa, at that time Italy’s principal silver market with clients from Spain, the French nobility and municipalities, and above all the great local aristocratic families, the Doria, the Spinola, the Pallavicini, the Brignole-Sale, and the Durazzo. As well as the catalogue of religious and secular silverware, the volume contains a silversmith’s dictionary, a list of hallmarks, consuls, markers and assayers of the mint, and an index of places. Text in Italian.

Franco Boggero and Farida Simonetti
Argenti Genovese da Parata tra Cinque e Seicento
1991, Torino, Umberto Allemandi
252 pp 232 illustrations, 32 duotones
ISBN : 88 422 0296 7
Size: 305 x 210 mm
Hardbound
Out of print, but it does turn up from time to time. I saw a copy on my my last visit to Turin ! Text in Italian.

All books published by Umberto Allemandi & C. are available online : www.allemandi.com

Eight Books about the Maison Christofle…
Huit livres sur la Maison Christofle…

Bouilhet, Henri
150 Ans d’Orfèvrerie / Christofle, silversmith since 1830.
Chêne/Hachette, Paris, 1981
272pp., many b+w illustrations.
Text in French and English.
The standard and most accessible basic reference on Christofle. Long out of print, but second-hand copies do turn up from time to time.

Bouilhet, Henri
Un Travail d’Orfèvre
Ecrire, Paris, 1998
191pp., many line drawings.
Text in French with translations of each term in English, Italian, German, Spanish and Dutch. A popular glossary of the principal terms used in French silversmithing…(at the workshops of the Maison Christofle at Saint-Denis).

Dossier de l’Art, Numero 2, juillet/août 1991
Christofle – 150 ans d’art et de rêve.
74pp., many colour illustrations.
Text in French. A double issue, devoted to Christofle, of the monthly magazine produced by the Dijon publisher Faton. This issue was entirely written by the then curator of the Christofle museum and was produced to complement the exhibition catalogue from the Logis Royal of the Chateau de Loches in the Touraine region. (See below). This is still available!

Exhibition, Chateau de Loches, 1991
Christofle 150 Ans d’Orfèvrerie.
80pp., many b+w and colour illustrations.
Text in French. An exhibition covering the history of the Maison Christofle organised by Marc de Ferrière le Vayer, then curator of the Christofle museum.

Exhibition, Riom, 1992
Christofle – une certaine idée de l’orfèvrerie.
Musée Mandet, Riom, 1992
48pp., many b+w and colour illustrations.
Text in French. Christofle silver from the twentieth century. The small catalogue text is by the then curators of the Christofle museum.

Exhibition, Saint-Denis, 1998
Des Cheminées dans la plaine, cent ans d’industrie à Saint-Denis 1830-1930.
206pp., many b+w and colour illustrations.
Text in French. The city of Saint-Denis on the outskirts of Paris was home to a number of industries, one of which was Christofle.

Ferrière le Vayer, Marc
Christofle – deux siècle d’aventure industrielle 1793-1993.
Le Monde Editions, Paris, 1995
456pp., no illustrations.
Text in French. A very good and extremely informative business history of the Maison Christofle.

Kanowski, Claudia
Tafelsilber für die Bourgeoisie. Produktion und Private Kundschaft der Pariser Goldschmiedefirmen Christofle und Odiot zwischen Second Empire und Fin de Siècle.
Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin, 2000.
305pp., 6 colour and 86 b+w illustrations.
Text in German. An analytical survey of the silversmiths Christofle and Odiot. The illustrations are mostly from the Christofle and Odiot archives, and also mostly hitherto unpublished.
This is readily available. ISBN 3-7861-2334-9.

Seven books on German silver :

Bestecke des Jugenstils / Art Nouveau Knives, Forks and Spoons : Deutsches Klingenmuseum Solingen
Barbara Grotkamp-Schepers, Reinhard W. Sänger
Arnoldsche, Germany, 2000
216pp, 342 illustrations
Text in German and English

Published in a bilingual German and English text, this is the catalogue of, not surprisingly mostly German, collection of jugenstil cutlery at the Klingenmuseum in Solingen. The catalogue is prefaced by two articles on the table, table-silver and its form and decoration. Each piece in the catalogue is illustrated and has an accompanying description. There are sadly only a few biographies, but perhaps most useful are 86 photographs of silversmith's marks.

Tafelzier und Klingenkunst
Leonie Becks, Barbara Grotkamp-Schepers, Hans Knopper
Deutsches Klingenmuseum, Solingen, 1994
224pp, 367 b+w illustrations

Tableware and the art of the blade, the Klingen museum is after all, the museum of the blade, from cutlery to swords and razors. This fascinating book uses almost four hundred period engravings to illustrate everything from cutlery, spoons and swords of sixteenth-century Germany to the swords of Jan, China and India. Apart from the chapter on portraits by Hans Knopper, the texts are all by Barbara Grotkamp-Schepers, curator of the museum, and Leonie Becks, curator of the Cologne Cathedral Treasury.

Deutsches Klingenmuseum Solingen : Führer durch die Sammlungen
Barbara Grotkamp-Schepers et al.
Rheinland-Verlag GmbH, Köln, 1997
127pp, 170 mostly colour illustrations

This is a short but comprehensive introduction to the museum's surprisingly broad collection.

Historische Bestecke Eine Auswahl aus der Sammlung Marquardt
Barbara Grotkamp-Schepers et al.
Deutsches Klingenmuseum, Solingen, 2003
40pp, 1 b+w and 29 colour illustrations

Die Geschichte der Schere
Hanns-Ulrich Haedeke, Ernst-Wilhelm Niegeloh, Jochem Putsch
Rheinland-Verlag, Köln, 1998
162pp, over 170 illustrations

Der Gräfrather Kirchenschatz : Heiltümer aus sieben Jahrhunderten
Martin Seidler
Deutsches Klingenmuseum, Solingen, 1994
60pp, 39 colour illustrations

Die Schatzkammer des Kölner Domes
Leonie Becks, Rolf Lauer
Verlag Kölner Dom, Köln, 2000
148pp, over 300 mostly colour illustrations

All the above books are available directly from the Deutsches Klingenmuseum, except for Die Schatzkammer Köln, which can be bought at the Cologne Cathedral Treasury.

Myer Myers : Jewish Silversmith in Colonial New York
By David Barquist, with essays by Jon Butler and Jonathan D. Sarna
Yale University Art Gallery / Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2001.
304pp, over 150 colour and b+w illus.
$60.00

Myer Myers, a Jewish silversmith in colonial America, created outstanding works for leading members of the New York elite, and the objects made in his workshop have long been regarded as among the most important American statements of the Rococo style. These works are also valuable for the information they provide about craftsmanship, patronage, colonial Judaism, and changing cultural values in pre- and post-Revolutionary America.

This stunning catalogue presents works from Myers’s workshop in conjunction with essays by eminent authorities on his life and times, all of which shed light on significant themes and events in American culture and history. Myers’s lifelong membership in the New York Jewish community, for example, reveals much about the role of religious minorities and social toleration in eighteenth-century America, and the artifacts he created for his family and religious community provide a vivid picture of colonial Jewish life. At the same time, Myers’s career as a silversmith offers insights into the complexities of preindustrial craftsmanship in America, showing that silversmiths were less autonomous than has previously been assumed. Catalogue entries provide a chronological survey of Myers’s career, highlighting his finest work, situating it within his routine shop production, and focusing on key objects to evoke the interplay of influences that shaped individual works of American art.

This catalogue accompanied an exhibition that was on view at the Yale University Art Gallery from September 14, 2001, to December 30, 2001. It then travelled to the Skirball Cultural Center and Museum in Los Angeles from February 19 to May 26, 2002, and to the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum in Delaware from June 20 to September 13, 2002.

David L. Barquist is associate curator of American decorative arts at the Yale University Art Gallery. Jon Butler is William Robertson Coe Professor of American History and professor of religious studies and history at Yale University. Jonathan D. Sarna is Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History and professor of Judaic studies at Brandeis University.

See: >http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/

David Barquist also wrote American silver from the Kossack Collection: A checklist; and American and English Pewter at the Yale University Art Gallery: A Supplementary Checklist, both published by the Yale University Art Gallery.

An Exhibition of French Orientalist Silver of the 19th Century
Exposition d’orfèvrerie française orientaliste du 19ème siècle

40 €

The exhibition, of French Orientalist Silver of the 19th Century, held at the Galerie Berko in Paris from the 15th of May - 4th of June 2003 drew much interest and attention from both collectors and museum curators in France and from abroad. Covered by the French press, notably l’Œil Magazine and Mme Figaro Magazine, the exhibition was a unique opportunity to see such a large group of French silver influenced by the arabo-islamic world. The work of nineteen different silversmiths was represented, including Henri Duponchel, Maurice Mayer and the Maison Odiot.

A fully illustrated 64 page exhibition catalogue is available, it is written by David Allan, a XIXth and XXth century silver specialist and expert based in France. The text is in English and French, and there is much interesting never-before published source material.

This is the only reference on the subject.

Silversmiths represented :
Aucoc, Louis,
Brateau, Jules
Boivin, Victor
Calot, Jean Henri (Belgian)
Christofle
Duponchel, Henri
Fray Fils
Froment-Meurice, Emile
Glachant, Charles
Gombault, C.
Hugo, Emile
Lavallée, Charles
Martin, Charles-Denis-Noël, Mayer, Maurice, Odiot, Queillé, P., Roussel, D., Tétard Frères, Turquet, A.-A.

Les Cuillers à sucre dans l'orfèvrerie française du XVIIIe siècle
Bilgi Kenber, François Baudequin, Nicolas Marischael,
Paul Micio et Philippe Palasi
Editions Somogy, Paris, 2004.
256pp, 300+ illus.

45 €

This handsome book is without doubt the reference on French eighteenth-century silver sugar sifting spoons. This book, like the collection of Mr Bilgi Kenber, has been many years in the making, and it is a fine and serious piece of scholarship. The work of a number of different specialists, it begins with an historical presentation, followed by the geographical and typological divisions; then explanations of the different pierced designs. A discussion of the making of a sugar spoon in eighteenth-century France, also and no less interestingly the fakes to be found.

The main body of the book is the meticulously catalogued collection of one hundred and twenty-five spoons belonging to Mr Kenber along with a further ten spoons from the collection of René Balbo. It is divided into two sections: Paris and Province.

The book is completed by a bibliography and a list of exhibitions.

À la passion de la quête et à celle du plaisir esthétique, somme toute bien personnelles, s’ajoutent à la fois l’envie de dévoiler, de communiquer, de transmettre – ce livre en est la concrétisation – et le désir d’apporter ma contribution à la recherche. Si de nombreux ouvrages portent sur l’orfèvrerie en général ou sur la production d’une région et de ses orfèvres, rares sont les études consacrées, comme ici, à une pièce précise d’orfèvrerie.
Puisse ce volume inspirer d’autres collectionneurs ou amateurs éclairés, pour qu’ils donnent le jour à des livres
de référence sur un objet d’argenterie, témoin du passé, de l’admirable travail et de la fascinante ingéniosité de nos maîtres orfèvres. Bilgi Kenber. (Propos liminaire).