Silver in Georgia.(Current and coming)(Sideboard to Pulpit: Silver in Georgia)

The earliest known silver object made in Georgia is a diminutive stud measuring less than an inch in diameter that was made for a cloak or coat. It bears the distinctive mark of Freidrich Wilhelm Muller who worked in the town of Ebenezer, Georgia, between about 1736 and 1751. It was rightly deemed quite a discovery since eighteenth-century silver made in Georgia is exceedingly rare. English silver was exported to Georgia as it was to other sections of the country, but Georgia stands out in the South for the amount of silver that was exported by northern manufacturers for resale to a sophisticated market. In the nineteenth century, when silversmiths in Georgia could not compete with their counterparts in the North, they became silver merchants. They often struck their mark on the imported wares they sold, presumably in an attempt to blur the line between maker and retailer.

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An exhibition devoted to the history of silver in this state is on view at the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia in Athens until March 26, 2006. From Sideboard to Pulpit: Silver in Georgia includes more than one hundred examples made ...