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The Jarvie Shop - Chicago - 1905

KAPPA - XI - ALPHA - ZETA

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THE EXHIBITION OF THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF CRAFTSMEN - NEW YORK - DECEMBER 1906




..........In metals, from the Buske and Deady studios at Bedford, N. Y., and New York City, came platters, bowls, jars and other objects in both hammered and repoussé brass and copper. A round brass tray, with firm handles, showed beautifully fine hammered work. A copper box was of good outline and ornamentation, and there were also candlesticks and jars of beautiful forms. The Jarvie Shop, of Chicago, had a display of fine brass work, its “spun candlesticks,” of which there were several pairs, being particularly graceful and slender in form. Miss Caroline Ogden, of Milwaukee, was another exhibitor of fine metal work in bowls and trays.

Source: The International Studio - 1907

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The Shop of Robert Jarvie - Chicago - 1912

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Listing of the official positions in the Jarvie Shop in 1905, showing Robert Jarvie's wife, Lillian Gray Jarvie, as the Secretary, Treasurer and Director:


JARVIE, L. G., 636-638 Fine Arts Building.
Jarvie Shop, The, Secretary, Treasurer and Director.

JARVIE, R. R., 636-638 Fine Arts Building.
Jarvie Shop, The President and Director.

Source: Directory of Directors in the City of Chicago - Audit Company of New York - 1905

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The Jarvie Shop - Chicago - 1906

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Details of a meeting in memory of Bert Leston Taylor, a journalist with The Chicago Tribune, in which Robert Jarvie carried out the role of an Usher:



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Robert Jarvie's entry as a Resident Member in the Cliff Dwellers Year Book 1920-1921:



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The Jarvie Shop - Chicago - 1905

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Entry from a listing of Illinois Corporations showing Guy Nash of Grand Rapids, Wisconsin as secretary of the Shop of Robert Jarvie in 1913:



Source: Certified List of Illinois Corporations - 1913

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PAUL REVERE, SILVERSMITH AND MODERN EMULATORS

THE HANDWROUGHT SILVERWORK OF ROBERT JARVIE, CRAFTSMAN

By Roger Caye


Paul Revere and his midnight ride are household words in every American family. But Paul Revere did other things than take thrilling midnight rides in the cause of his country. He was a many sided genius and everything he set his hand to, he did much more than indifferently well. He seems to have been in every field of activity from making false teeth and engraving book plates, to manufacturing gun powder and brass cannon for the government or establishing rolling mills. One of the craft pursuits in which he shone signally was the designing, making and engraving of silverware and the household silver of Paul Revere's workmanship is deservedly among the most highly prized of the graceful specimens put forth by Colonial smiths quite as much for its beauty of shape and delicacy of finish as for the historic association involved.



Recognizing the widespread appreciation of Revere's patterns and their intrinsic excellence, and recognizing also the fact that there was a demand for handwrought silver of that type, Robert Jarvie, metal craftsman, of Chicago, has set to work to duplicate the tea sets and spoons made by the silversmiths of old Boston so that those who are not fortunate enough to possess priceless heirlooms from Revere's own workshop may, at least, have the satisfaction to be gained from a replica of their proportions.

Mr. Jarvie is avowedly an emulator of Paul Revere and he surely could have no more worthy craftsman exemplar in whose steps to follow. In duplicating patterns of such unquestioned merit, Mr. Jarvie shows much wisdom. The intelligent making of replicas of any work of acknowledged superiority does not in any way derogate from the originality of the craftsman but rather is it a tribute to his fine sense of discrimination. There is a subtle charm in the refined shaping of Revere teapots and creamers, caddies and bowls, and Mr. Jarvie is doing a real service to the public in giving ware of this type a wider circulation.

Mr. Jarvie does not, of course, confine himself to the reduplication of Revere patterns. He does much other work that is distinctly modern in feeling, making the designs himself and either executing the smelting of it himself or having it done under his personal supervision. Indeed, it was this essentially modern work that led to the present location of his studio in the middle of the Chicago stock yards. Mr. Arthur G. Leonard, the president of the Union Stock Yard Company, was desirous of putting a new idea into the trophies that are awarded every year in great numbers to the cattle raisers at the various shows in Chicago and also at the fairs in the neighboring states, and invited Mr. Jarvie to move into the “Old English Cottage” on Exchange Avenue and there design and execute articles that would have some fitness and value to their recipients.



This action on the part of Mr. Leonard displayed a laudable piece of intelligence which others having the award of prizes and trophies might do well to imitate. There can be nothing more supremely foolish than to keep giving farmers, stockmen, or in fact any class of competitors for a prize, a succession of loving cups that by sheer force of endless repetition as awards for all manner of events for which they were not appropriate, have lost every vestige of significance or sentiment once attached to them. Other forms of trophies, too, have become almost equally hackneyed and when the recipient happens to be the possessor of many such awards their presence becomes a positive embarrassment. They are utterly useless for any practical purpose and from a decorative point of view, they present an awkward problem. Owing to some sentiment attached to them or to pride in the record of achievements, of which they were the visible tokens of recognition, one does not wish to send them to the melting pot to be wrought over into more desirable and serviceable forms. In one extreme case, known to the writer, a golf champion had won so many trophies that his house was so loaded to repletion with bowls, loving cups and the like that at last it became the practice to consult his wife, before making an award.

Feeling the utter futility of the conventional method of prize giving, the president of the stock yard company sought Mr. Jarvie's co-operation and the latter, with his assistants, is “trying to make things out of gold, silver and brass that will be beautiful, useful and fitted for the purposes of the people who will own them.”

It is perfectly safe to say that the trophies that have been contrived since the inception of this happy scheme of co-operation have been universally more suitable and have given a greater degree of appreciative satisfaction than ever before.



To show Mr. Jarvie's Catholicity of appreciation and wide range of sources from which he draws his inspiration, it is worth noting that one of the best things he has achieved is a punch bowl for which the motif was supplied by an old vessel used by the cliff dwelling Indians and now deposited in the Field Museum.

In conclusion, attention should be called to the fact that Mr. Jarvie is engaged in an endeavor that ought to receive the hearty commendation of all craftsmen and all lovers of craftsmanship. He is trying to emphasize the fact that handwrought work does not necessarily stamp an article as being prohibitively expensive.

Source: Arts & Decoration - August 1914

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Robert Jarvie of Chicago, whose Paul Revere silverware was illustrated in the August issue, is just completing among other noteworthy works, the Wilbur W. Marsh Cup — a magnificent silver punch bowl for the American Guernsey Cattle Club.

The piece stands 14 inches high and is very massive. The bowl is 15½ inches in diameter and the entire weight is one hundred and fifty ounces.

The bowl decorations are corn leaves and the standard ornamentation is the alfalfa plant, both somewhat conventionalized, of course.

Source: Arts & Decoration - October 1914

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Robert Jarvie - Chicago - 1914

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Furniture and Rugs

Robert Jarvie announces the addition of a department for the making of Furniture and Rugs, to his Shop in the Old English Cottage at the Stock Yards.

Mr. Jarvie will design and make Furniture of every description. Patrons may submit their own designs or Mr. Jarvie will be glad to duplicate any piece of Furniture desired.

Rugs will be made to harmonize with the decoration of the room.

Both Furniture and Rugs are made under Mr. Jarvie's personal supervision, and the workmanship will be of the highest order.

Source: An Illustrated Annual of Works by American Artists & Craft Workers - The Artists Guild Galleries - 1915

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Art in the Stock Yards

Every American knows that Chicago has vast "Stock Yards," a little world peculiar unto itself, but every American doesn't know that the Stock Yards have an art center, and that close to the Yards is a little colony of artists; painters and sculptors, and "casting shops" where plaster modelings are reproduced in metals. The "Colony" is holding its first exhibition as an "annual" in a spacious gallery, right under the "eaves" of the Yards. In this assemblage are some stunning bronzes by the "Florentine Brotherhood," a coterie of sculptors-many alluring figures, some graceful and others heroic in pose, and all skillful in execution. These are cast in the studios of the Brotherhood. Fay Barnes Powell is exampled in etchings and paintings. Robert Jarvie is represented in silverware, copper and brass utilities and fancies, and contributes also a collection of rugs and special furniture. Magdelena Tolson, noted as an interior decorator, has etchings in line, with several book-plates and a collection of chinas. Norman Tolson has on show portraits, miniatures, mezzo tints and posters.

Some time ago the late W. Scott Thurber occupied "The Cottage" (near the entrance to the Yards) as an art gallery. The "Florentine Brotherhood," sculptor Carlos Romaneli, and his comrade-workers, were leaders in establishing studios at the Yards. Then Robert Jarvie, silversmith, opened
studios and then others. And the Midway studios are within call, so that it may be told that the Yards colony of artists is a permanent local art center.

Source: American Art News - 1st January 1916

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An advertisement in Polish from Robert Jarvie:


Robert Jarvie - Chicago - 1917

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The Shop of Robert Jarvie - Chicago - 1910

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Robert Jarvie - Chicago - 1914

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The Shop of Robert Jarvie - Chicago - 1911

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The Shop of Robert Jarvie - Chicago - 1910

'ALPHA' - 'OMICRON' - 'LAMBDA' - 'Xi' - 'BETA' - 'COLONIAL'

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The Shop of Robert Jarvie - Chicago - 1911

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