Lot 27
27
A FIVE-PIECE SILVER TEA SERVICE ON TRAY OF HISTORICAL INTEREST

Details
A FIVE-PIECE SILVER TEA SERVICE ON TRAY OF HISTORICAL INTEREST
MAKER'S MARK OF GORHAM, MFG. CO., PROVIDENCE, 1870

Comprising a kettle on stand with burner, teapot, covered sugar bowl, cream jug and waste bowl; each vase-shape with a flaring rim applied with medallions and a Greek-key border, on a flaring circular foot chased with stylized leaves, the domed circular covers with heraldic lion finials, the kettle spigot with seated putto tap and classical mask handles, the oval tray with classical mask handles and engraved with two river scenes, one with a horse drawn barge, the other with a paddle steamer named C. VIBBARD, centering inscription PRESENTED TO Henry Smith BY HIS FRIENDS, JANUARY 16TH, 1871, flanked by a tiger's head within a garter inscribed AMERICUS CLUB and on the other side the arms of the City of New York, the other pieces each engraved with monogram HS, each marked--kettle on stand 19in. high; tray 33½in. length over handles
(gross weight 374 oz. 10 dwt.) (6)
Provenance
Henry Smith, Republican Police Commissioner, City of New York

Lot Essay

This tea service was presented to Henry Smith by his fellow members of the Americus Club, a social organization which included W. M. "Boss" Tweed as a member. As New York City Commissioner of the Department of Public Works and Chairman of Tammany Hall, Tweed stole millions of dollars from the city treasury. The Americus Club, founded in 1857 by a few firemen of the Seventh Ward, was transformed under Tweed's membership into a vastly wealthy club with a weekend house in Greenwich. The engraved scenes on this tray, a canal barge and a paddle steamer, probably refer to a public project engineered by the Tweed Ring. The tiger emblem, seen on this tray, was the emblem of Tweed's fire engine company, and later became the emblem of Tammany Hall. Thomas Nast's political cartoons helped expose the activities of the Tweed Ring from 1869-1872, and popularized the tiger as a symbol of the corrupt political machine in New York.