The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 29, 2024

Centerpiece from the Nereid Service

Centerpiece from the Nereid Service

c. 1900
Overall: 66.1 x 97.8 cm (26 x 38 1/2 in.); Base: 79.5 x 97.8 cm (31 5/16 x 38 1/2 in.)
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

This centerpiece is actually the product of many hands since the Goldsmiths' and Silversmiths' Company operated as a cooperative of silversmiths who sold their work through the company.

Description

Originally thought to have been made by the early 19th-century London silversmith Paul Storr because it had been marked with spurious Storr hallmarks, more recent scholarship has revealed that this service, representing the triumph of Great Britain on the high seas through the allegorical images of Grecian nymphs (nereids), was actually made to display at the 1900 world's fair in Paris. Such nationalistic fervor permeated design at the turn of the 20th century, especially in the years leading up to the First World War, when national pride was brought to its heels in Europe through a devastating conflict.
  • formerly in the collection of the Earl of Abercorn; Thomas S. Grasselli.
  • Clark, Mark A. Paul Storr Silver in American Collections. 1972. cat. no.25, p. 11
    The Magazine Antiques 44, no. 4 (October 1943). mentioned P 188 library.clevelandart.org
    Marcus, Margaret Fairbanks, and Anson Howe Smith. Period Flower Arrangement. New York: M. Barrows, 1952. mentioned & reproduced P 155
    Penzer, N. M. Paul Storr, the Last of the Goldsmiths. London: Batsford, 1954. reproduced P 130 library.clevelandart.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. mentioned & reproduced cat. no. 274 archive.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. reproduced P 163 archive.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. reproduced P 163 archive.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. reproduced P 195 archive.org
    Harrison, Stephen, Emmanuel Ducamp, and Jeannine J. Falino. Artistic Luxury: Fabergé Tiffany Lalique. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2008. mentioned & reproduced PP XIII & 29, cat. no. 110 library.clevelandart.org
    Trumble, Angus, and Andrea Wolk Rager. Edwardian Opulence: British Art at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century. New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 2013. mentioned & reproduced PP 329-30, cat. no. 73 library.clevelandart.org
  • Edwardian Opulence. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT (organizer) (February 28-June 2, 2013).
    Artistic Luxury: Fabergé Tiffany Lalique . The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 19, 2008-January 18, 2009); Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA (February 7-May 31, 2009).
    Paul Storr: Silver in American Collections. Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN (organizer) (February 7-March 12, 1972); Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH (March 24-April 30, 1972).
    Paul Storr Silver in American Collections. Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN (February 7-March 12, 1972); Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH (march 24-April 30, 1972).
    Three Centuries of English Silver. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (September 29-November 12, 1950). Published in the Bulletin of the Art Division of the Los Angeles County Museum, Vol. 3, no. 3, Fall, 1950, no. 220.
    Paris Exposition of 1900.
  • {{cite web|title=Centerpiece from the Nereid Service|url=false|author=Goldsmith's & Silversmith's Company|year=c. 1900|access-date=29 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1943.189