Pie Server

Albert Coles

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The mid-nineteenth century witnessed an efflorescence of creativity in the American silver industry, fueled by the burgeoning middle class’s increasing demand for refined luxury goods. Silversmiths devoted considerable time and creative energy to generating an endless variety of new designs and patterns. During the 1860s and 1870s silver flatware ornamented with portrait medallions inspired by antique coins and cameos enjoyed widespread popularity, with virtually every American silversmith producing their own proprietary "medallion" pattern. Albert Coles, an influential and prolific silver manufacturer and retailer working in New York City from 1835 through 1877, produced both hollowware and flatware; however, the mainstay and focus of his business was flatware. Among his many flatware designs were several different medallion patterns. This pie server, in a pattern deipcting a helmeted warrior in a circular surround, illustrates the wide array of specialized flatware on which medallion patterns featured. Indeed, medallion patterns graced dinner, dessert, and tea tables across the United States.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art