Casket Plaque of Henry William Metzger

ClassificationsSculpture-plaques

Date1869

MediumSilver

Credit LineBowers Museum Collection

Object number32790.2

DescriptionDated 1869, this silver plaque was most certainly removed from the end of a casket. Henry William Metzger died at 16. This plaque, along with another plaque from the casket of Henry William Metzger, was found in 1965 in the back of the truck of the Bowers Museum’s gardener, Andy Anderson, while he was working on the museum’s lawn. How these two silver plates got out of the ground, across at least part of the continental United States to California and into the back of the truck has remained one of the grandest mysteries of the Bowers.

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