Charleston Silver Lady Comes to Athens

Georgia has the Silver Comet. South Carolina has the Charleston Silver Lady.

The Silver Lady is Dawn Corley, a Charleston resident who’s been collecting silver her entire life. She’s been talking about silver to a variety of groups for more than 20 years.

This coming Friday, she will be talking about silver--and her silver in particular--to the collectors of the . Her presentation will take place at 6 p.m. in the museum’s M. Smith Griffith Auditorium.

Corley is a descendent of a colonial silversmith from Charleston. She’s been learning about silver and sharing her knowledge for more than 25 years. She has spent decades gathering silver from all over South Carolina, much of it from Charleston, much dating from the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Corley has given presentations to U.S. Presidents, the Pentagon, the Family Circle Cup and hundreds of other groups. Southern Lady, National Geographic, Veranda Magazine and South Carolina Home and Garden Magazine have all carried feature stories about her. Corley has also appeared on local and national television, including HGTV’s “If Walls Could Talk,” talking about antiques and related subjects.

Corley’s collection contains more than 5,000 historic objects, each with a link to a lowcountry family or plantation. A portion of her collection was featured in an exhibition at the South Carolina State Museum, which was extended twice to accommodate demand.

Corley is a former fellow with the Charleston Antiques School and is an expert in fine jewelry, She was the assessor and appraiser of the jewelry discovered in the H.L. Hunley after it was raised from the Charleston harbor. Her findings were published in Blue Light Magazine.

To attend Corley’s presentation costs $35 for the general public, $30 for Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art and $25 for those in the Collectors group. It’s free for UGA students who make a reservation. For more information, or to make a reservation, call 706-542-4662.