An Impressive Early Renaissance Revival Sterling Silver Repousse "Gilmor" Ewer

Samuel Kirk (active 1815-1872), Baltimore, Maryland, Circa 1840

allover decorated with registers of floral motifs, shells, leafage, and acanthus, the central band centered by reserve engraved with monogram, "NFS" (?), flanked by a depiction of a merman spearing a large sea monster, the opposite side also with a reserve, flanked by two dolphins, the spout with masque, marked to underside, "SAML. KIRK/ 11 OZ."

Height 12 3/4 x width 8 1/2 x depth 5 1/2 inches, Weight: 37.315 oz. t.

Provenance:

A Virginia collector.

Note:

Samuel Kirk referred to this form of pitcher as a "Gilmor" ewer, named after the Gilmor Family of Baltimore, whether after a commission for a family member or after the collection of Renaissance objects assembled by the Gilmors. An identical ewer, made for Sarah Birckhead McKim and dated to 1843, is published in Gregory R. Weidman and Jennifer F. Goldsborough, Classical Maryland, 1815-1845: Fine and Decorative Arts from the Golden Age (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society/ The Museum and Library of Maryland History, 1993), pg. 170, fig. 212.

really nice overall, with nice surface- having some minor occasional dings or scratches commensurate with age and use; a couple minute knicks along rim; bears some sort of struck mark along base rim exterior; a few minor spots of persistent tarnish, particularly one spot to upper part of base; a few divots or scratches to interior of rim

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Lynda Cain

VP, Head of Department, American Furniture, Folk and Decorative Arts

[email protected]267.414.1237

Lynda Cain serves as a Vice President of Freeman's and is the Head of Department for American Furniture, Folk and Decorative Arts.
She specializes in American furniture and decorative arts, Native American art, American folk art, and Pennsylvania furniture and decorative arts.
Cain joined Freeman's in 2001 as the company's first American furniture and decorative arts specialist. She began her career in American Decorative Arts as assistant curator at the Detroit Historical Museum. In 1984 she became curator of costume at the Detroit Historical Museum. In 1986, she relocated to Cambridge, Massachusetts and switched from museum work when she joined the American Furniture and Decorative Art Department at Skinner Inc., Bolton and Boston, Massachusetts. Before leaving New England in 1997, she had the great pleasure of directing the cataloguing project of the Folk Art Collection of Nine Fletcher and Bertram K. Little at Cogswell’s Grant, Essex, Massachusetts for the Society of the Preservation of New England Antiquities, now Historic New England. Ms. Cain joined the cast of the popular PBS series Antiques Roadshow in Season 19.
Growing up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, she was greatly influenced by the rich collections of American paintings, furniture, and decorative arts held by Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum. She notes her good fortune of working in our two great “attic states:” Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Each Commonwealth has tremendous inventory of historic material, great institutions, and citizens who treasure their inherited and collected items. Cain appears on the television Antiques Roadshow as an appraiser of decorative and folk arts.

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An Impressive Early Renaissance Revival Sterling Silver Repousse "Gilmor" Ewer

Samuel Kirk (active 1815-1872), Baltimore, Maryland, Circa 1840

Provenance:

A Virginia collector.

Note:

Please email [email protected] for any additional information or questions you may have regarding this lot.

American Furniture, Folk and Decorative Arts

An Impressive Early Renaissance Revival Sterling Silver Repousse "Gilmor" Ewer

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