This article originally appeared in the October 2007 issue.
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 (see below). When Jeffrey Herman Silver Restoration and Conservation first received the coffee pot, 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.
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 silversmithing 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.
Herman’s firm specializes in conserving, repairing, and restoring metal holloware, flatware, and dresser sets. Services include designing, casting, soldering, removing corrosion, patinating, removing dents, hand-finishing, raising, polishing, spinning, and hand-engraving. Herman is usually opposed to removing a monogram both because it is part of the object’s history and because beautiful engraving is a rapidly disappearing art, but if removal is necessary he can do it skillfully. The firm also restores flatware (except hollow-handled knives) that has accidentally slipped into and been mangled by a garbage disposal. Although Herman specializes in conserving and restoring silverware and jewelry, he can also have client designs produced by select subcontractors.
Herman’s clients include antiques dealers, private collectors, and museums, among them the Yale University Art Gallery, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, and the International Tennis Hall of Fame. His website, www.silversmithing.com/silver, covers various silver topics, including repair questions, resources, basic care, a glossary of terms, engraving samples, and a recommended reading list. If you have a silver object in need of repair, he suggests sending it to him for a price quote. A work order form with detailed packing instructions is also included on the Web site.
Jeffrey Herman Silver Restoration and Conservation is located at 669 Elmwood Avenue, Studio C-2, Providence, Rhode Island 02907, and may be contacted by phone (401-461-6840), or e-mail (jeffherman@silver smithing.com).
