Fred Harvey Company Sterling Silver Salad Service [SOLD]

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Fred Harvey Company

In this pair of silver salad service fork and spoon, the thunderbirds, following the Fred Harvey logo, are stamped on the handles as well as in the bowls of each utensil.

Navajo spoons depicting thunderbirds appear no earlier than 1909, the year the thunderbird became the logo for the Fred Harvey Company after employee Herman Schweizer sketched the figure from a rare pictograph at Abó, a prehistoric pueblo in southeastern New Mexico.

 

“Thunderbirds were common in the stormy Great Plains and the moss-laden forests of the Pacific Northwest, not so in the arid Southwest, but Abó sat at the center of trade lines between the Plains and the Rio Grande to the west, and evidently the thunderbird migrated along these paths of exchange.  The Fred Harvey Company’s appropriation of the image allowed it to spread its wings wide across New Mexico and Arizona and was embraced as an authentic Southwest ‘Indian symbol.’ 

 

“In keeping with the copyrighted version of their logo, Harvey Thunderbirds have two squares to the right and left of the bird’s chest.  The earliest Harvey Thunderbirds stamped onto spoons and jewelry keep true to the copyrighted version . . . Other characteristics of Harvey Thunderbirds include broad, squared-off shoulders and stair-stepped wings. The heads face to the right in keeping with the logo. Kline 2001, 65

 

In this pair of silver salad service fork and spoon, the thunderbirds, following the Fred Harvey logo, are stamped on the handles as well as in the bowls of each utensil. 

 

Condition: excellent original condition

Provenance: this Fred Harvey Company Sterling Silver Salad Service  is from a private collection

Reference: Kline, Cindra. Navajo Spoons – Indian Artistry and the Souvenir Trade, 1880s – 1940s, Museum of New Mexico Press. 2001.

In this pair of silver salad service fork and spoon, the thunderbirds, following the Fred Harvey logo, are stamped on the handles as well as in the bowls of each utensil.

Fred Harvey Company
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