Customer Reviews

Early Connecticut Silver, 1700-1840

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The work is basically a catalog of outstanding pieces of Connecticut hollowware and flatware plus a few pieces of different types with silver as part of them such as swords, pepperboxes (pepper shakers), and one pair of shoe buckles . The paperback edition is the same as the hardcover put out in 1970 with the addition of the Introduction by Eisenbarth. In this new section of about 25 pages, Eisenbarth gives background on the early American silver and profiles of the leading silversmiths.

The pieces are shown in photographs one per page except for a few smaller items such as the pepperboxes which are two to a page. The factual information provided below each photo is just what collectors and researchers and the like are interested in. Such information is identification and date of the piece, the silversmith who made it, description, inscription, maker's mark, dimensions, and lastly in italics the current owner of the piece, in most cases a private collector or a museum. The descriptions provide the basics of the design which might not or can not be known by the photo alone; such as "round, tapered body, slightly everted lip, flat bottom" for one of the silver beakers, and "oval bowl, narrow handle stem flattening to pointed, downturned end" for the 1792 serving spoon facing it. Combined with the dimensions of height, etc., also noted, one gets an accurate and useful image of each item.

Although the catalog includes only Connecticut silver of the period covered, it serves as a catalog and reference for all early American silver, i. e., of the Colonial period and the first decades of the American republic after the Revolutionary War. At this time, Connecticut along with Massachusetts and to some extent Philadelphia and a couple of other isolated spots were the centers for high-quality silver pieces. Moreover, there was not that much variation in the kinds of pieces or their styles. The photographs make an ideal visual reference. Collectors, antique dealers, historians, etc., will appreciate especially as well the 45 notes to Eisenbarth's Introduction, the biographical notes on the Connecticut silversmiths, and the five-page selected bibliography. The 15-page Index of Marks with close-up photographs of numerous silversmiths' marks capturing the details of them is yet another aspect making the book a top work for readers in its field of collecting and early Americana.