'Communion plate of the most approved and varied patterns, in true ecclesiastical style': Francis W. Cooper, silversmith for the New York Ecclesiological Society, 1851 to 1855

摘要

In 1851 New York City-silversmith Francis W. Cooper began making Gothic Revival communion plate for the New York Ecclesiological Society, a group of Episcopalian clergy and laymen modelled on the Ecclesiological Society in London. The stylistic qualities of Cooper's communion plate were guided by the New York Ecclesiological Society's aesthetic and theological goals. Until its dissolution in 1855, the Society marshalled the skills of Francis W. Cooper and other New York craftsmen to produce novel Gothic Revival communion plate for Episcopal churches in the eastern United States. Evidence from Cooper's communion objects and the Society's publications clarifies the relationship between Cooper and his patron, aspects of the manufacturing process and important design sources.;Cooper continued to manufacture communion plate for Episcopal churches for at least twenty years after the New York Ecclesiological Society's dissolution in 1855. With few exceptions, Cooper's later communion pieces are less elaborate compressions of his work for the Society. This stylistic stasis and his work's influence on later nineteenth-century communion plate illustrates the conservatism of their patrons and the seminal influence of the New York Ecclesiological Society on American ecclesiastical silver.