Bread or Cake Basket
William Braisted Heyer, American, 1776 - 1828
about 1820
Silver
Overall: 9 1/8 × 13 1/4 × 9 9/16 in. (23.2 × 33.6 × 24.3 cm)
Weight: 33 oz. (0.9 kg)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through a gift from the Estate of John H. Mudie, Class of 1949, in memory of Ernest Martin Hopkins, Class of 1901
2014.22
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
19th century
Object Name
Tools and Equipment: Food Service
Research Area
Decorative Arts
Not on view
Inscriptions
Signed (with touches, twice, on the bottom): W. B. HEYER
Label
Commonly referred to as “cake baskets”—though they likely also held bread, fruit, and flowers—these elegant silver containers represented an increasing specialization of food service items that paralleled advances in silver manufacturing techniques and an ever more elaborate code of dining etiquette that would reach its high point in the Victorian period.
Neoclassical elements of this example include its sleek form, claw and ball feet, acanthus-leaf and fleur-de-lis border and, most distinctively, its applied Medusa heads at the ends of the bowl. These are based on Hellenistic representations of Medusa as a beautiful victim rather than a horrid Gorgon (see the marble sculpture of a beautiful Medusa by Harriet Hosmer in the nearby sculpture gallery). Also noteworthy is the die-rolled patterned border on the handle that features idealized pastoral vignettes. Such imagery ideally suited an American clientele that increasingly associated national identity with an Arcadian ideal.
From the 2019 exhibition American Art, Colonial to Modern, curated by Barbara J. MacAdam, Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art
Exhibition History
American Art, Colonial to Modern, Israel Sack Gallery and Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26, 2019-September 12, 2021.
The World of Duncan Phyfe: The Arts of New York, 1800–1847, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, December 15, 2011 - February 17, 2012.
Publication History
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 2011–12, The World of Duncan Phyfe: The Arts of New York, 1800–1847, p. 99 no. 53 illus. 99 (discussed pp 96–97).
Stuart P. Feld and Elizabeth Feld, “The Arts of New York, 1800–1847: The World of Duncan Phyfe,” The Magazine Antiques 179, no. 1(January–February, 2012), 216–25, illus. p. 219.
Provenance
Hirschl and Adler Galleries, New York, New York; sold to present collection, 2014.
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