Chafing dish

Copper and silversmith Joseph Heinrichs is listed in New York City directories from 1897, with locations at 928 Broadway Avenue and 227 West 29th Street. After 1910, directories tout his enterprise as the "best chafing dish and tea kettle store in existence." Sold in prominent retail stores throughout the United States, this chafing dish is one of Heinrich's most popular designs. Heinrichs transformed a utilitarian object, complete with a burner, hot water pan, and silverplated food pan, into a whimsical sculptural statement with the addition of three cast rabbits that perch on the scrolled legs of the stand and peer with anticipation toward the lid and the contents it conceals.

**Adapted from**

* Charles Venable, DMA unpublished material, 1989.

* Charles L. Venable, _Silver in America, 1840-1940: A Century of Splendor_ (Dallas, Texas: Dallas Museum of Art; New York, New York; Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1994), 349.