A dazzling testament to Southern Asian silver’s role in the transformation and consumption of once rarified goods to those taken for granted daily around the world.
Silver elevates use, not only for the diverse religious rituals of Southern Asia, but also consumption of and access to then-new items: photographs, colored prints, mirrors, railways, and automobiles; newly invented or trans-planted foods including teas and coffees, Indian pale ale, punch, antipodean wines, milk products, relishes, mustards, fruits, and specialty seasonings (like pepper, salt, and sugar). Many of these items originated in Southern Asia and were among the first tinned or bottled items to circulate in global markets. Five scholarly essays and two interviews discuss the artistry and functionality of Southern Asian silver. A spectacular array of 130 suites of silver and twenty-two design drawings, devotedly collected by Mr. Harish K. Patel, showcases Southern Asia’s cultural and economic soft power through silver.
Director's
Foreword; Chair's Preface; Acknowledgements;
Chapter 1 Making Modernity:
Keys
to a Century of Aspirations through Southern Asian Silver, 1830s-1930s by
Katherine Anne Paul;
Chapter 2 Stories of Silver: Interview with Collectors
Harish K. Patel and Veronica McDavid;
Chapter 3 Silver for Ceremony by
Kimberly
Masteller;
Chapter 4 Silver and Glory: A Consideration of Trophies, Sport,
and
Colonialism in India by Tushara Bindu Gude;
Chapter 5 Connecting Coffee
Cultures of India with Birmingham: An Interview with Praveena Sundarraj;
Chapter
6 Tracing Tea Cultures in India: Antecedents and the Nineteenth Century by
Romita
Ray; Catalogue: Stories in Silver: Religious Arts; Aspirational Arts;
Sensorial
Arts; Revivalism in Silver Art; Appendix A Three Maps of India's Trade and
Infrastructure from the Mid-Nineteenth to Early-Twentieth Century by Richard
A.
Pegg; Appendix B Timeline; Appendix C Designing Silver: Access for All in
the
Archives of the Birmingham Museum of Art by Laura C. Woodard; Appendix D
Silversmith
Biographies; Appendix E Glossary; Recommended Reading; Index; Contributor
Biographies.
Tushara Bindu Gude is formerly associate curator of South and Southeast Asian Art at LACMA. Kimberly Masteller is Jeanne McCray Beals Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Katherine Anne Paul is lead curator and Virginia and William M. Spencer III Curator of Asian Art, Birmingham Museum of Art. Richard A. Pegg is the director and curator of Asian Art for the MacLean Collection. Romita Ray is associate professor of Art History at Syracuse University. Laura C. Woodard is librarian and archivist, Birmingham Museum of Art.
