Silver Sugar Bowl c. 1936

This silver sugar bowl was designed by Simon Weiss, an artist who lived between 1855 and 1995. While this is only a drawing, imagining the finished silver object conjures the tremendous amount of handwork required to make it. Consider the silversmith, annealing and hammering the metal into shape, raising the bowl's form from a flat sheet. The handles, perhaps cast separately, would need to be meticulously attached. And of course the chasing, that is, the fine decorative work that gives the bowl its refined character, complete with monogram. The value of this object would have been directly proportional to the number of hours invested in its making. Silver objects like this were not just beautiful; they were a store of value, a way of keeping wealth close at hand. We can appreciate its aesthetic qualities, while also recognizing it as a material record of labor, class, and consumption.