Loving Cup

1912–17

Lebolt & Co.
American, founded 1899
Chicago

Produced by the Chicago silver firm Lebolt & Co., this loving cup is an example of machine-age practices introduced at the height of the Arts and Crafts movement. Unlike the hand-hammered Chicago metalwork of this period, the vessel has a smooth finish. Its bowl was formed from a sheet of machine-rolled metal rather than worked by hand from a silver bar or ingot. Lebolt’s interest in mechanical methods reflects the philosophy of Chicago architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who wrote in 1901,“in the Machine lies the only future of art and craft.”

Status: On View, Gallery 179
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Lebolt and Company
Title: Loving Cup
Place: Chicago (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: c. 1912–1917
Medium: Silver
Inscriptions: Marked on bottom: left-facing rampant lion beside a script "L" in lozenge on a twisted rope over "HANDMADE" in capitals; "STERLING/818" on opposite side of base
Dimensions: 22.9 × 20.3 × 15.2 cm (9 3/4 × 8 1/4 × 6 in.)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by Martha and William Steen and the Dr. Julian Archie Fund
Reference Number: 1987.123

Ark Antiques advertisement in The Magazine Antiques, 5, 81 (June 1987) p. 1204.
Annelies Krekel–Aalberse, Art Nouveau and Art Deco Silver (Abrams, 1989), 104, 114–5, no. 104.
Judith A. Barter, Elizabeth McGoey, et al., American Silver in the Art Institute of Chicago (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), cat. 80 (ill.).
Elizabeth McGoey, ed., American Silver in the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2018), https://publications.artic.edu/americansilver/reader/collection/section/6, cat. 80 (ill.).

Art Institute of Chicago, Apostles of Beauty: Arts and Crafts from Britain to Chicago, Nov. 7, 2009–Jan. 31, 2010, cat. 81.

Ark Antiques, New Haven, Connceticut, by 1987; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1987.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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