Kevin O'Dwyer, an internationally known Irish metalsmith who specializes in silver, recently visited Alleghany to study the Kamm teapot collection.

Internationally known silversmith studies collection

Kevin O'Dwyer, an internationally known Irish artist who specializes in silver, was asked by teapot collector Sonny Kamm to come to Alleghany to study and document the silver pieces in the collection. The Kamm collection is slated to be the centerpiece for the proposed Sparta Teapot Museum.

O'Dwyer, who was in the county from April 5 until May 5, said he has known Kamm for a number of years. O'Dwyer said, "What I'm doing here over this month has been actually looking at all his silver collection and documenting all the different ones. In other words, cataloguing what period of time, the identity of the makers, what condition the pieces are in…. There are some very fine pieces here from the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th century. It's a fine collection. There are probably about 750 metal teapots in the collection."

Further explaining his task while in Alleghany, O'Dwyer said, "My job has been, actually, to just look and date a lot of the older work and the quality of the making, and basically write a description of how each piece is made as well. When the collection is shown, there will be some in depth information within the collection. If you were interested in finding out further information on a particular piece, you would be able to actually look it up and see how that actual piece was made. That's important for other metalsmiths and for people that are actually doing art history, but also for anybody. I'm sure there's a lot of people here that (are) involved with metal fabrication and they'd be very curious as to how a piece was made 200 years ago."

Working on a description for each piece could take as little as 45 minutes or as long as two hours, depending on the quality of the pieces, as well as whether the piece was manufactured or designer-led.

"Some of the pieces, I actually have to give them information on what needs to be done to restore it to its pristine condition," he said. During the course of documenting the collection, O'Dwyer has found that the collection spans many countries, including the United States, England and Germany.

"I have yet to find an Irish piece," he remarked.

The Collection

"I think this is a great opportunity to have a collection like this in Sparta," O'Dwyer offered. "I'm really looking forward to seeing the museum built and seeing some of those pieces out there. I think it will draw in people that will be very interested in it.

Get the rest of this article in this week's issue of the Alleghany News! Back