Fruit or Cake Basket

1820-1825

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Thomas Charles Fletcher, Sidney Gardiner, and others

Fruit or Cake Basket

Maker: Thomas Charles Fletcher
Maker: Sidney Gardiner
Makers: Thomas Fletcher & Sydney Gardiner

Fruit or Cake Basket

1820-1825

Physical Qualities Silver, 6 5/8 x 17 x 11 5/8 in. (16.8 x 43.2 x 29.5 cm) Weight: 66 oz.

Credit Line Middendorf Foundation Fund; and purchase with exchange funds from Gift of Mrs. Daniel L. Baker, Jr.; Gift of Alberta and Henry G. Burke; Gift of Mrs. W. W. Crocker; Gift of Maria Lovell Eaton and Mrs. Charles R. Weld, from the Estate of Mary M. Eaton; The Mary Frick Jacobs Collection; Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. Benjamin Katzner; Bequest of Philip B. Perlman; and Gift of Florence Hendler Trupp

Object Number 1993.2

Silversmiths Thomas Fletcher and Sidney Gardiner operated in Boston before moving to Philadelphia, where their firm prospered from 1811 – 1842. They imported plated silver objects from Sheffield and Birmingham, England, while also supplying fine silver vessels made to their own designs. This basket, with its upswept oblong shape and sculptural ornament, may have been inspired by imported British plated pieces. The cornucopia-shaped handles symbolize agricultural plenty, associated not only with Demeter, ancient goddess of the harvest, but also with the abundance of the fledgling United States.

Winterthur Museum, "Silversmiths of a Nation", July 5-Septmeber 21, 2008 circulated to The Metropolitan Museum of Art November 20, 2007 - May 4, 2008.

Wendy A. Cooper, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, CLASSICAL TASTE IN AMERICA 1800-1840, BMA 6/27-9/26/93, p.295, circulated to Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Fennimore, Donald L. , and Ann K. Wagner. "Silversmiths to the Nation: Thomas Fletcher and Sidney Gardiner 1808-1842" : The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc., 2007. ill. p. 168.

Inscribed: Stamped on underside "FLETCHER & GARDINER/PHILA." in a circle, exterior of one side of base engraved "R.F. Stockton" in script