A RARE AND IMPORTANT SILVER CREAM JUG
THE PROPERTY OF A NORTH CAROLINA FAMILY
A RARE AND IMPORTANT SILVER CREAM JUG

MARK OF JACOB HURD, BOSTON, CIRCA 1745

Details
A RARE AND IMPORTANT SILVER CREAM JUG
MARK OF JACOB HURD, BOSTON, CIRCA 1745
Baluster, on three trefid feet, the body with three chased cartouches, one cartouche with an engraved and chased scene of ducks and trees, one with a church amid trees, and the central cartouche with a coat-of-arms and crest, with a scroll handle, marked on body
4¼in. high; 4oz.
Provenance
Received as a wedding gift in the family of the present owner in 1913; further genealogy available to purchaser

Lot Essay

This extremely rare cream jug belongs to a group of only six examples with scenic engraving, all by Jacob Hurd. Two are at the Yale University Art Gallery, one is at the Cleveland Museum of Art, another is at Bayou Bend, and two, including the present example, are in private collections. The decoration on all six is remarkably similar; each has three trefoil-shaped panels outlined by chased (repoussé) borders, and the scenes are rendered with a mixture of engraving and chasing. Three of the jugs have a coat-of-arms in the center panel, surmounted by a crest above a row of seven dots (as opposed to the heraldically correct six). The distinctive nature of this decoration indicates that they were engraved by the same hand, and indeed this group of scenic cream jugs is unique in American silver. (See Buhler & Hood, American Silver in the Yale University Art Gallery, 1970, cat. nos. 149 and 150; Phillip M. Johnston, Catalogue of American Silver: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1994, illus. p. 80; David B. Warren, et al., American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection, 1998, cat. no. M49, pp. 291-292.)

A coat-of-arms bearing the single charge of a crescent was used by a number of English families, including Farnham, Russell, and Bourne--all names associated with 18th-century Boston. However, without tinctures, the present arms are impossible to identify precisely. The Mott family, who emigrated from Essex in the 17th century, used the crescent arms in combination with the crest of an estoile as on the present cream-jug, although again we have no tinctures to confirm this attribution.

More from Important American Furniture, Folk Art, Silver, Prints and

View All
View All