An important Arts and Crafts silver box
Rectangular box on four compressed bun feet. Decorated to all faces and the slightly raised lid with flowers in polychrome enamel in octagonal cloisonné plaques amid ornamental designs in silver wire. W 12.5; D 8.5; H 5 cm.
Boston, monogram applique "EC" for Elizabeth Copeland, circa 1910.
Elizabeth Ethel Copeman began her training at the Cowles Art School comparatively late in life, remaining there from 1896 - 1900. She began participating in her first important exhibitions soon after, for example the Arts & Crafts Exhibition at the Providence Art Club in 1901, the yearly exhibitions of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1903 to 1910, and the St. Louis World Fair in 1907. After cooperating with the Handicraft Shop for a short period, she had a studio of her own on Boylston Street in Boston from 1905 until at least 1927. Copeman was most well-known for her colourful enamel boxes decorated in her own unmistakeable style of cloisonné enamel, reminiscent of medieval reliquaries. She soon established herself as a renowned member of the Arts and Crafts circle in New England, and her works began to be acquired by influential collectors and museums such as the Detroit Art Institute and the Cincinnati Art Museum.
Provenance
Acquired in the 1970s from Lilian Nassau, New York; subsequently in family ownership.
Literature
Cf. another box by Copeland in the Loewe Fowler collection, illus. in cat.: Inspiring Reform, Boston's Arts and Crafts Movement, Boston 1997, no. 35. A further example in the Art Institute of Chicago, illus. in: Barter (ed.), Apostles of Beauty. Arts and Crafts from Britain to Chicago, Chicago 2009, p. 161, no. 9.