MARK OF JOHN HULL AND ROBERT SANDERSON OVERSTRUCK WITH MARK OF JEREMIAH DUMMER, BOSTON, CIRCA 1670

Details

A SILVER CAUDLE CUP FROM THE FARMINGTON CHURCH
MARK OF JOHN HULL AND ROBERT SANDERSON OVERSTRUCK WITH MARK OF JEREMIAH DUMMER, BOSTON, CIRCA 1670
Baluster form with scroll handles with ears and midrib, the base engraved F.C., marked on side with mark of Robert Sanderson (Kane mark C) overstruck by Jeremiah Dummer (Kane mark A), the base mark of John Hull (Kane mark C), overstruck by Jeremiah Dummer (Kane mark A)
6 ½ in. wide (16.5 cm.) over handles; 7 oz. 10 dwt. (239 gr.)

Provenance

First Church of Christ, Congregational, Farmington, Connecticut, sold
Sotheby's, New York 21 January 2005, lot 415

Literature

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, American Church Silver of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, with a Few Pieces of Domestic Plate, 1911, p. 43, nos. 379-383
E. Alfred Jones, The Old Silver of American Churches, 1913, pp 178-179, plate LXI
Hermann F. Clarke and Henry W. Foote, Jeremiah Dummer, Colonial Craftsman & Merchant 1645-1718, 1935, no. 19
Yale University, Gallery of Fine Arts, Masterpieces of New England Silver, 1650-1800, 1939, no. 114, p. 54
Hermann F. Clarke, John Hull: A Builder of the Bay Colony, 1993, no. 7, p. 208
Barbara McLean Ward, "'In a Feasting Posture:" Communion Vessels and Community Values in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century New England," Winterthur Portfolio (Spring 1988), pp. 16-17, fig. 10
Patricia E. Kane, Colonial Massachusetts Silversmiths and Goldsmiths, 1998, pp. 390, 569, 884
Barbara Mclean Ward, "Continuity and Change in New England Church Silver and Communion Practices, 1790-1840," New England Silver & Silversmithing, 1620-1815, 2001, pp. 118-119, fig 4

Exhibited

"American Church Silver of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, with a Few Pieces of Domestic Plate, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, July-December 1911," nos. 379-383, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, 1964-2004
"Masterpieces of New England Silver, 1650-1800," Yale University Gallery of Fine Arts, 1939, no. 114

If you wish to view the condition report of this lot, please sign in to your account.

View condition report

Lot Essay

This caudle cup is a unique document of the close relationship between America’s first silversmiths, John Hull and Robert Sanderson, and Jeremiah Dummer, America’s first native-born silversmith. In 1659 John Hull engaged Dummer as an apprentice, noting in his diary “I received into my house Jeremie Dummer & Samuel Paddy to Serve me as Apprentices eight years. The Lord make me faithful in discharge of this new trust committed to me and let this blessing be to me and them.”

Gifts of silver to extremely puritanical congregations such as the Farmington Church were engraved with the initials of the congregation rather than the initials or coats-of-arms of the donor (as was the practice in most Congregational churches; see the silver from the Old South Church, lots 86-88). Accordingly, this cup is engraved with the initials FC for Farmington Church, and even this monogram is reserved for the base rather than the visible part of the silver. This cup has faint evidence of an earlier prick-engraved owner’s monogram, suggesting that when it was given to the Church, this “ostentatious” sign of ownership and patronage was erased from the side.

For information on Farmington Church, see note to lot 95.

CAPTIONS FOR MARKS:
Dummer’s mark over Robert Sanderson’s mark
Dummer’s mark over John Hull’s mark

More from Important American Silver

View All