Wilcox Silverplate Co.

The Wilcox Silver Plate Co. (1867-c. 1980) was formed in Meriden, Connecticut. From 1865-67, it was known as the Wilcox Brittania Co.[1] In 1898, the company was acquired by the International Silver Company, headquartered in Meriden. After the acquisition, the Wilcox Silver Plate Co. brand continued until at least c. 1980. [2] [3]

Wilcox Silver Plate Co. designs are in several museum collections including the Art Institute of Chicago; British Museum in London; Brooklyn Museum; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI; Dallas Museum of Art; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC; Newark Museum, NJ; New Orleans Museum of Art; Philadelphia Museum of Art, St. Louis Art Museum; Wolfsonian-FIU in Miami Beach; and Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, CT.[4]

Over the years, Wilcox Silver Plate Co. designs have been exhibited in several museum exhibitions in the United States and beyond since at least 1934.[4] In 2005-07, designs were included in the touring exhibition Modernism in American Silver: 20th-Century Design, organized by the Dallas Museum of Art, which also travelled to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. [5]

One of the most exhibited Wilcox Silver Plate Co. / International Silver Company designs is the space-age looking urn designed by Eliel Saarinen (1934).[4] The urn was exhibited in St. Louis Modern (2015–16)[6] and Cranbrook Goes to the Movies: Films and Their Objects, 1925–1975 (2014–15).[7]

On June 11, 2014, a Paul Lobel-design tea set for Wilcox Silver Plate Co. sold for USD$377,000 at auction at Sotheby's in New York.[8]