A FINE AND RARE PAIR OF SILVER CHAFING DISHES
PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF ERIC MARTIN WUNSCH
A FINE AND RARE PAIR OF SILVER CHAFING DISHES

MARK OF JOHN CONEY, BOSTON, CIRCA 1715

Details
A FINE AND RARE PAIR OF SILVER CHAFING DISHES
MARK OF JOHN CONEY, BOSTON, CIRCA 1715
Each circular, the three scroll legs on claw feet atop wooden balls, the body with molded rim and pierced border, the base and charcoal pan with similar decoration, the turned wooden handle with baluster-form silver mount, engraved on the side with a crest, marked on side next to handle
12 1/8 in. (30.8 cm.) long over handles; 39 oz. (1,220 gr.) gross weight (2)
Provenance
Probably Thomas Hutchinson (1675-1739), merchant, Boston, then by descent
Sotheby's, New York, 28-30 January 1988, lot 1061
Literature
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Colonial Silversmiths, Masters & Apprentices, 1956, no. 35, illus. fig. 18, p. 55 Martha Gandy Fales, Early American Silver, 1970, fig. 69, pp.73- 75
Patricia Kane, Colonial Massachusetts Silversmiths and Jewelers, 1998, p. 324
Exhibited
Museum of Fine Arts, Colonial Silversmiths, Masters & Apprentices, Boston, 1956
On loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1936-1958

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Lot Essay

The crest is that of Hutchinson, probably for Thomas Hutchinson (1675-1739), merchant of Boston.

The Hutchinson coat of arms also appears on a chocolate pot by Edward Winslow, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Beth Carver Wees, Early American Silver in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013, no. 71). Wees suggests that Thomas Hutchinson was the owner of the chocolate pot on the basis of his great wealth and the provenance supplied by the donor in 1919. Indeed, Hutchinson owned a vast amount of silver, with over 600 ounces in silver objects recorded in his will (Wees, op. cit., p. 196).

Two single chafing dishes identical to the present examples, with the distinctive claw feet, are at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA 57.701) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA 41.70.4). Pairs of chafing dishes are extremely rare; only one other by Coney, of a simpler form, is known (illustrated in Kathryn C. Buhler, American Silver, 1655-1825, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1972, fig. 60, pp. 70-71).

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