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In less than two decades the Dallas Museum of Art in Texas brought together a remarkable collection of nineteenth-century American silver Now by purchase and partial gift it has added the holdings of industrially produced twentieth-century silver and silver plate amassed by Jewel Stem, one of the leading scholars in the field, thus creating in an astonishingly brief time one of the world's foremost collections of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American silver.

Built over the course of a mere sixteen years, the Stem collection consists of more than three hundred objects and includes exceptional examples by the key designers of the twentieth century as well as pieces by virtually all the major American silver manufacturers at work between about 1925 and 2000. The latter include Tiffany and Company, the International Silver Company and the Gorham Manufacturing Company among others. An important criterion for Stem in selecting an object for her collection was that it have presence, regardless of its size. A fine example is the Gorham mayonnaise bowl illustrated above. When she first encountered the piece, Stem thought it was probably a creamer orphaned from its original tea or coffee service. However, Gorham records revealed its true purpose and that the design was first produced in March 1934.

Another element that appealed to Stern in her collecting was the incorporation of color into a silver object by enameling, gilding, or adding semiprecious stones or Bakelite details. A striking example is the sterling silver cigarette box with graphic decoration in black and green enamel made by Tiffany and Company and advertised in Harper's Bazaar in September 1937. The box was also available with black enameling in combination with either red or cobalt blue.

Enamel also decorates the sterling cocktail shaker illustrated at right. The shaker bears the leaf hallmark of the Charter Company a division of the International Silver Company which registered Charter's leaf mark in August 1930. The shaker was offered separately or with matching stemmed "cocktail cups" and a tray and came with or without enamel decoration. The undecorated version was pictured in the July 1928 issue of Vogue, in an article entitled "Twentieth-Century ...