"Communion plate of the most approved and varied patterns, in true ecclesiastical style": Francis W. Cooper, silversmith for the New York Ecclesiological Society, 1851 to 1855
Date
1997
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
In 1851 New York City-silversmith Francis W. Cooper began making Gothic Revival communion plate for the New York Ecclesiological Society, a group of Episcopalian clergy and laymen modelled on the Ecclesiological Society in London. The stylistic qualities of Cooper's communion plate were guided by the New York Ecclesiological Society's aesthetic and theological goals. Until its dissolution in 1855, the Society marshalled the skills of Francis W. Cooper and other New York craftsmen to produce novel Gothic Revival communion plate for Episcopal churches in the eastern United States. Evidence from Cooper's communion objects and the Society's publications clarifies the relationship between Cooper and his patron, aspects of the manufacturing process and important design sources. ☐ Modelling itself on the Ecclesiological Society in England, the New York Society supervised the production of inexpensive and more costly Gothic Revival communion plate on behalf of individual donors and churches, who were assured that it adhered to "correct" principles of ecclesiology because it was produced by the Society's craftsmen. William Butterfield, architect of the English Society, established the criteria for "correct" Gothic Revival communion plate in the Anglican and Episcopal community by interpreting early sixteenth-century models. Rather than create facsimiles of English ecclesiological plate, Cooper and the New York Society rearranged Butterfield's seminal designs, incorporating a few stylistic anomalies. Despite these departures from English ecclesiological plate, Cooper's work for the New York Society adheres to tenants of ecclesiology in its over-all form. This consistency within the forms masks their disparate levels of ornamentation and Cooper's use of different construction techniques. ☐ Cooper continued to manufacture communion plate for Episcopal churches for at least twenty years after the New York Ecclesiological Society's dissolution in 1855. With few exceptions, Cooper's later communion pieces are less elaborate compressions of his work for the New York Ecclesiological Society. This stylistic stasis and his work's influence on later nineteenth-century communion plate illustrates the conservativism of their patrons and the seminal influence of the New York Ecclesiological Society on American ecclesiastical silver.