Katherine Pratt was one of only eight silversmiths awarded the prestigious “Medalist” designation by the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston (SACB). She is the only woman in that group. Pratt studied silversmithing at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts before serving as a student/apprentice with Boston silversmith George Gebelein on a scholarship awarded by the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union. She later opened her own studio in Dedham, Massachusetts, teaching at the Beaver Country Day School and the Boston School of Occupational Therapy, and exhibiting her work regularly, including in the 1937 Internationale des Arts des Techniques in Paris where she won a gold medal. Despite the longevity of Pratt’s career, her work—particularly her exhibition pieces—are extraordinarily rare.

Pratt showed this elegant Centerpiece bowl at the SACB’s Triennial (30 year) Exhibition held at the Museum of Fine Arts in 1927, before it traveled to the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Metropolitan in New York. The large silver bowl references colonial forms while exhibiting the typical Arts and Crafts-style hammer marks that draw attention to its handmade status. The bowl is supported by a delicate hand-sawn openwork stem with stylized floral decoration sitting upon a solid domed base that gracefully inverts the form on the bowl. The floral decoration adds a nod to the French Art Deco style then becoming popular in the United States.

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