Book excerpt: This lavishly illustrated book documents the most distinguished works from the Metropolitan Museum's extensive collection of domestic, ecclesiastical, and presentation silver from the Colonial and Federal periods. Detailed discussions provide a stylistic and socio-historical context for each piece, offering a wealth of new information to both specialist and non-specialist readers. Every object is documented with new photography that captures details, marks, and heraldic engraving. Finally, accompanying essays discuss issues of patronage and provenance, design and craft, and patterns of ownership and collecting, providing windows onto the past that help bring these pieces to life. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press