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Lot Essay
The coat-of-arms on the present tankard is that of Foxcroft for William Foxcroft.
Jeremiah Dummer (1645-1718) was America’s first native-born silversmith. In 1659 he began his apprenticeship with émigré John Hull, first mintmaster of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, creator of the famed “Pine-Tree” shilling. Dummer himself trained John Coney, with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship.
A similar lion-form thumbpiece can be found on a tankard by Timothy Dwight of Boston, dated circa 1685, illustrated in F. Bigelow, "Early New England Silver," Early American Silver and its Makers, J. Kolter, ed., New York, 1979, p. 55, fig. 1. M. Fales describes this example by Dwight as the only other American example besides the present lot to have a thumbpiece in this form, which was fashionable in England at the time (Early American Silver For the Cautious Collector, New York, 1970, p. 50).
Jeremiah Dummer (1645-1718) was America’s first native-born silversmith. In 1659 he began his apprenticeship with émigré John Hull, first mintmaster of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, creator of the famed “Pine-Tree” shilling. Dummer himself trained John Coney, with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship.
A similar lion-form thumbpiece can be found on a tankard by Timothy Dwight of Boston, dated circa 1685, illustrated in F. Bigelow, "Early New England Silver," Early American Silver and its Makers, J. Kolter, ed., New York, 1979, p. 55, fig. 1. M. Fales describes this example by Dwight as the only other American example besides the present lot to have a thumbpiece in this form, which was fashionable in England at the time (Early American Silver For the Cautious Collector, New York, 1970, p. 50).