Salomon Marion

"We recommend that those who are interested in the progress of the arts in this country, and particularly of the success of their compatriots in this world, visit the shop of Mr. Marion, a silversmith ... There they will see a piece of his own creation that merits the attention of connoisseurs and that cannot fail to be admired by all persons of taste."

- Canadian Spectator, 1826.

An outstanding artisan and meticulous technician, Salomon Marion is considered to have been one of the best silversmiths of his time, and he had a large and thriving clientele in the Montreal region. In his work, both religious and domestic, he combined French and British styles to create original pieces.

When Marion was 16 years old, his father sent him to Montreal to apprentice under master silversmith Pierre Huguet dit Latour. Five years later, Marion, in his turn, became a master silversmith and began to work for the trader Dominique Rousseau, no doubt making articles of trade silver. In 1810, he became the supervisor of his former master's workshop, where he was to make at least 27 large pieces of church silver that year.

Marion gained his professional emancipation in 1816. To the pieces of church silver that he was already making, including the commission for the Immaculate Conception (c. 1818) for the church then standing in Verchères, he added domestic objects (Teapot, c. 1815-30). After the death of Pierre Huguet, in 1817, the fabriques became his regular customers. Two years later, he took over the operations for François Loran, who ran a busy centre for the production and exchange of trade silver in St-François. His sudden death in 1830, when he was 48 years old, put an abrupt end to the work of a virtuoso who drew on all the trends of his times.