MORRISON HECKSCHER: American-made silver breadbaskets were very rare in the colonies during the eighteenth century. Most were imported from England by the very wealthy. So this is one of only two or three colonial baskets known today.

BETH WEES: And it is really a beauty, I think.

MORRISON HECKSCHER: Curator Beth Wees.

BETH WEES: It is very much in the rococo style. You have a lot of curvilinear forms so that you follow the sort of scrollwork. And it is made to look very airy and lacy by being pierced. Each panel was pierced with a saw, with a little tiny fretsaw.

MORRISON HECKSCHER: With its high-style English roots, this basket reminds us that many Americans looked to London for guidance on fashion.

BETH WEES: As a historian, I once heard said, "Americans wanted political independence, but they didn't want social independence."

MORRISON HECKSCHER: And colonial Americans liked to live an opulent life. Indeed the basket’s original owners had homes in New York and North Carolina. They were the prosperous West Indies merchant Samuel Cornell and his wife Susannah. You can see their monogram – “SSC” – in the center of the basket. These wealthy patrons commissioned several pieces from this same noted silversmith – Myer Myers. The only major Jewish silversmith known today from the colonial period.