Image Not Available

Alms dish

George Ernest Germer (American, born in Germany, 1868 – 1936)

1920

Object PlaceMason, New Hampshire

Medium/TechniqueBrass

DimensionsOverall: 3.8 × 35.9 cm (1 1/2 × 14 1/8 in.)

Credit LineGift of Spencer Marks, Ltd.

Accession number2019.1806

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsMetalwork

Collections

Americas

InscriptionsCast into rim of dish: “ALL things come from thee and from thine own have we given thee” “Des. & Made by G. E. Germer.” Inscribed on underside of rimProvenanceEstate of the artist by descent to Florence S. Dustin, Cambridge, MA; June 6, 2018, sold by Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, MA to Spencer Marks Ltd.; 2019, gift of Spencer Marks Ltd. to the MFA. (Accession Date: September 25, 2019)

1937, sold by the Estate of George E. Germer, through the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston [see note 1], to Florence S. Dustin (b. 1887- d. 1967), Cambridge, MA; late 1950s, probably given by Dustin to the Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, MA [see note 2]; June 2018, sold by the Episcopal Divinity School to Spencer Marks, Ltd., Southampton, MA; 2019, gift of Spencer Marks Ltd. to the MFA. (Accession Date: September 25, 2019)

NOTES:
[1] The executrix of the estate of George E. Germer was Henrietta J. Fuchs (1876-1958), the daughter of William Fuchs, a fellow German-American silversmith who Germer worked with at Tiffany & Co. in the 1890s. Fuchs put the cross on consignment to sales room of the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston in 1936-37.

[2] Florence S. Dustin lived just blocks away from the Episcopal Divinity School and it is believed that she attended church there. There are records of her donating other works to several institutions in Cambridge and New Hampshire in the late 1950s, and she probably donated this cross to the Episcopal Theological School at that time as well. Founded in 1867 in Cambridge, MA, it changed its name to the Episcopal Divinity School in 1974 when it combined with the Philadelphia Divinity School (founded in 1857). The cross, ciborium and alms dish (MFA accession nos. xx – xx) were kept in St. John’s Chapel at the Episcopal Divinity School. In 2018, the school merged with the Union Theological Seminary in New York City.