Lot Essay
A virtually identical cup by Onckelbag engraved with the Van Cortlandt arms is in the Yale University Art Gallery, illustraÿted in Buhler & Hood, American Silver in the Yale University Art Gallery, fig. 572, pp. 24-27.
Three other pieces of early New York silver bear this distinctive style of engraving. Two pieces--a covered cup and a six-panelled bowl--are by Onckelbag and bear the Twyford arms in a lozenge as found on the present example (see Flynt & Fales, The Heritage Foundation Collection of Silver, Deerfield, 1968, fig. 61, p. 89; and Kathryn C. Buhler, Colonial Silversmiths: Masters & Apprentices, 1956, p. 82, in the collection of the Museum of the City of New York). The third piece with engraving in this style is a tankard by Cornelius Kierstede at Winterthur, which bears a lozenge-of-arms of the Sill family.
The bowl at the Museum of the City of New York, which has identical engraving to the present example, was donated by Miss Charlotte Van Cortlandt, who attributed the initials MB on the base of the bowl to her ancestor Maria Brockholst (1682-1766). The bowl decsended through the Brockholst, Philipse, Gouverneur and Van Cortlandt families of New York.
Three other pieces of early New York silver bear this distinctive style of engraving. Two pieces--a covered cup and a six-panelled bowl--are by Onckelbag and bear the Twyford arms in a lozenge as found on the present example (see Flynt & Fales, The Heritage Foundation Collection of Silver, Deerfield, 1968, fig. 61, p. 89; and Kathryn C. Buhler, Colonial Silversmiths: Masters & Apprentices, 1956, p. 82, in the collection of the Museum of the City of New York). The third piece with engraving in this style is a tankard by Cornelius Kierstede at Winterthur, which bears a lozenge-of-arms of the Sill family.
The bowl at the Museum of the City of New York, which has identical engraving to the present example, was donated by Miss Charlotte Van Cortlandt, who attributed the initials MB on the base of the bowl to her ancestor Maria Brockholst (1682-1766). The bowl decsended through the Brockholst, Philipse, Gouverneur and Van Cortlandt families of New York.