Richly Wrought: A Chalice by Elizabeth Copeland

Published by the Two Red Roses Foundation, August 17, 2016

The Two Red Roses Foundation recently acquired this striking enamel-encrusted silver chalice by noted Massachusetts artist and metalsmith Elizabeth Ethel Copeland (American, 1866–1957), a longtime member of the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston. Copeland attended Cowles Art School in Boston where she studied design with artist Amy Sacker (1876-1965) and metalworking with Laurin Hovey Martin (1875-1939), whose own studies under the British enamellist Alexander Fisher suggests a decided influence upon Copeland’s work. Favoring a highly decorative style, Copeland’s silver boxes and other articles were exhibited as early as 1903, attracting the attention of critics and journals including The Craftsman in which her work appeared and was lauded for the “brilliancy and luminous effect” of its enameling. Supported by artist, Society patron and council member Sarah Choate Sears (1858-1935), in 1905 she began working from her own studio in Boston where over the following decades she produced jewelry, small boxes laden with wirework and enamel, and other metalware that often evoked medieval forms such as reliquaries and their silver and gilt decoration. The pronounced wirework of her cloisonné typically provided for highly stylized floral patterns alternately left free of enamels or filled with adjacent surfaces occasionally further enhanced by repoussé work and by settings of gemstone cabochons. Even as the silver of this chalice is well tarnished with decades of exposure to air, Copeland was said to oxidize the surfaces of the metal she used, immediately creating “a pleasing tone” for her that provided both contrast with the enamelwork and the suggestion of great age that came with a matte, darkened patina.

While much of her work draws upon ecclesiastical medieval associations the Foundation’s chalice is a rare example of her work that, beyond being a precious decorative object, is of a form complete with a pouring spout, suggesting it may have actually been intended for ritual use. While the particular circumstances of its creation and possible commission are presently unknown, in addition to her engraved initials “EC,” the chalice bears an early paper label indicating the work was once lent to an unnamed exhibition from “Dr. Bigelow,” presumably Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow (1850-1926), a founding member and patron of the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston. Interestingly, given the typically Christian associations of the chalice form, Bigelow, who for years lived in Japan, studied its culture, and voraciously collected its art, converted to Buddhism in 1885. However rare, Copeland made at least a few other examples of ecclesiastical works for exhibition, including chalices and ciboriums, an example of the latter purchased by art patron George G. Booth at the 1918 Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts exhibition and currently in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts. The Foundation’s chalice subsequently ultimately descended through another prominent family of Boston, the Warrens; it may have been acquired from Bigelow by Gretchen Osgood (Mrs. Fiske) Warren (1871-1961), who was also an art collector, patron, and member of the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston. We look forward in hopes future research may yet reveal the particulars of this fascinating provenance that further underscores the importance of the Society and Boston’s patronage of Arts and Crafts work.

Copeland continued her efforts well beyond the traditionally prescribed twilight years of the American Arts and Crafts movement around World War I, maintaining her membership in the Society until 1937. The medieval qualities that characterized her objects within the vocabulary of both the English and American Arts and Crafts movements may have found continued appeal alongside colonial style metalworking that persisted through the 1920s and beyond, but relatively few independent metalsmiths were able to make an effective transition into the new economies and modern styles that arose during the 1930s. Today, along with the efforts of her Massachusetts peers including metalsmiths Mary Catherine Knight (1876-1956), Rebecca Cauman (1887-1964), and Josephine Hartwell Shaw (1865-1941), Copeland’s boldly wrought works are seen anew as enduring testaments to the creative legacy of women metalsmiths of the early twentieth century. The Two Red Roses Foundation looks forward to helping to reveal this legacy by exhibiting this chalice, the sixth example of Copeland’s work in our collection, in the forthcoming Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement.

New Acquisitions Since the Publishing of the TRRF Arts and Crafts Metalwork Collection Catalog

 Since the release of its 274 page catalog, Arts And Crafts Metalwork From The Collection Of The Two Red Roses Foundation, authored by David Cathers and Jonathan Clancy, the Foundation has continued to acquire beautiful examples of metalwork to add to its collection. The following objects will be displayed in the forthcoming Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement, MAACM, alongside other selections depicted in the book.

This beautifully hand carved and hammered sterling box, a great example of Navajo work, comes from the estate of Gretchen Osgood (Mrs. Fiske) Warren of Boston, Massachusetts, as did the featured Copeland chalice The Navajo metalsmiths made buckles, bridles, buttons, rings, canteens, hollow beads, earrings, crescent-shaped pendants (called "najas"), bracelets, crosses, powder chargers, tobacco canteens, and disks, known as "conchas" or conchos" - typically used to decorate belts - made from copper, steel, iron, and most commonly, silver.

Early Navajo smiths rocker-engraved, stamped, and filed designs into plain silver, melted from coins, flatware, and ingots obtained from European-American traders. Later, sheet silver and wire acquired from American settlers were also made into jewelry. In 1903, anthropologist Uriah Hollister wrote about the Navajo "Belts and necklaces of silver are their pride… They are so skillful and patient in hammering and shaping that a fairly good-shaped teaspoon is often made of a silver dollar without melting and casting."

Jessie Preston’s career as metalworker, teacher, and later Red-Cross volunteer, serves as an exemplary model of Arts & Crafts ideals by combining a dedication to handicraft, a belief in the transformative power of craft, and a commitment to education. Preston’s work, like that of many metal workers in the Chicago and Midwestern Arts and Crafts movement, eschewed the more English Gothic elements prevalent among her East Coast contemporaries and reflects the blend of Art Nouveau and Prairie School styles that were emerging in the Midwest. Although her career in the United States lasted only through 1918, her constant participation in exhibitions and broad coverage in local and national media testified to her importance as a metal worker and demonstrates the high regard in which she was held by her contemporaries. -Jonathan Clancy, 2014.

Unlike many of his contemporaries who completed varying degrees of professional training that prepared them for a career in the arts, Robert Riddle Jarvie rose quickly from the ranks of amateur hobbyists to become one of the most important metalsmiths of the Arts and Crafts movement. Based in Chicago, in the early years of his career, his nearly singular focus on candlesticks earned him the moniker “the candlestick maker” and won him the respect of fellow craftsmen and critics alike.

Indeed, many of Jarvie's signature candlesticks were noted for the manner in which their designs were consanant with arts and crafts movement ideals about originality, functionality, and aesthetic qualities. -Jonathan Clancy, 2014.

Although Gustav Stickley's legacy within the history of the Arts and Crafts movement is well documented, suprisingly little has been written about his contributions to Arts and Crafts metalwork. Yet Stickley, through both the articles he published in The Craftsman and the objects he produced and sold in his retail outlets, served as important arbiter of taste.

Stickley’s involvement with Arts and Crafts metalwork began somewhat tentatively, despite the attention he paid to the medium in The Craftsman. In May 1902, although he devoted the entire issue to metalwork, he had not established a department to manufacture or sell these wares. Yet, as the magazine acknowledged, this type of work – which one author claimed “offers large opportunities to the craftsman” – was a quintessential expression of the Arts and Crafts for both the worker and the consumer. -Jonathan Clancy, 2014.