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Lot Essay
The monogram TBC is that of Theodore Bliss Cunningham (1842-1909), who inherited these casters from his ancestors in Plymouth, possibly the family of Rev. John Robinson (d. 1745) who married Hannah Wiswell (d. 1722) in 1705.
Ephraim Cobb (1708-1775) likely apprenticed to Moody Russell of Barnstable and moved to Plymouth in 1730, the year after he would have completed his apprenticeship. He married Margaret Gardner of Yarmouth earlier that year.
Surviving work by Cobb is extremely rare; there are only six pieces of holloware, three tablespoons, and two swords recorded in Patricia Kane's monograph (Colonial Massachusetts Silversmiths and Jewelers, 1998, pp. 291-293). These casters represent the seventh example of holloware by this Cape Cod maker who, like craftsmen in other small towns, was compelled to diversify his business practices (see Gerald W. R. Ward, "Micropolitan and Rural Silversmiths in Eighteenth-Century Massachusetts," in Kane, op. cit., pp. 111-138).
Ephraim Cobb (1708-1775) likely apprenticed to Moody Russell of Barnstable and moved to Plymouth in 1730, the year after he would have completed his apprenticeship. He married Margaret Gardner of Yarmouth earlier that year.
Surviving work by Cobb is extremely rare; there are only six pieces of holloware, three tablespoons, and two swords recorded in Patricia Kane's monograph (Colonial Massachusetts Silversmiths and Jewelers, 1998, pp. 291-293). These casters represent the seventh example of holloware by this Cape Cod maker who, like craftsmen in other small towns, was compelled to diversify his business practices (see Gerald W. R. Ward, "Micropolitan and Rural Silversmiths in Eighteenth-Century Massachusetts," in Kane, op. cit., pp. 111-138).