Silver conservation and restoration.(Design notes)(Occupation overview)

In 1905 the Danish silversmith and jewelry designer Georg Jensen (1806-1935) began to revolutionize silver holloware design with the introduction of his Blossom tea and coffee service number 2D. An example from this service is the coffeepot illustrated at lower right. When Jeffrey Herman Silver Restoration and Conservation first received the coffeepot, the ivory handle had rotted and broken off and the lightly hammered surface was dented and tarnished. Herman carved and attached a new ivory handle and hand-polished the surface, returning the pot to its original glorious appearance.

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Herman has more than twenty years of experience conserving and restoring silverware. His passion for metals began in high school where he sold rings of his own making to students and teachers. After studying silver-smithing and jewelry-making with designer-craftsmen Harold Schremmer and Ernest Thompson, Herman earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Maine College of Art in Portland. He then accepted a position designing flatware, making samples, and producing technical illustrations for the Gorham Manufacturing Company in Providence, Rhode Island, a leading American maker of silverware, bronze statuary, and other products. Two years later, the firm Pilz, also located in Providence, hired Herman to make ecclesiastical holloware, and there he also learned the techniques of silver conservation and restoration. In 1984 he opened his own eponymous firm, Jeffrey Herman Silver Restoration and Conservation in Providence.

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Herman's firm specializes in conserving, repairing, and ...