MARKED BY LAWRENCE LANGWORTHY (1692-1739), NEWPORT, DATED 1730

A rare survival of early metalwork from Rhode Island, this bell-metal posnet is prominently marked and dated by its maker, Lawrence Langworthy (1692-1730). Born in Ashburton in the county of Devon, England, Langworthy was a pewterer, brazier and iron founder. His date of immigration is not known, but his surviving dated objects, including this posnet, provide evidence of his movements. A plate dated 1719 indicates he was working in Exeter in this year and by 1730, the date on this posnet and at least two others, he had moved to Newport. Langworthy probably hailed from a prominent family and in America, he enjoyed considerable stature and financial success. A vestryman at Newport's Trinity Church, Langworthy died suddenly of a "violent collick" in 1739. Leaving a considerable estate, Langworthy was buried in the cemetery of Trinity Church, his grave marked by a tombstone with a coat-of-arms and his death was noted by the Boston Post Boy, which referred to his "Character of a Fair Dealer" and his occupation as brazier. An eighteenth-century term meaning skillet, a posnet was used for cooking over an open hearth, a task made easier with its legs and long handle. In addition to the posnet offered here, examples signed by Langworthy include two at Winterthur Museum and a third example at Historic Deerfield (Marion R. Brown, "Three Examples of the Work of Lawrance Langworthy, Newport Pewterer," Proceedings of the Rhode Island Historical Society, vol. 15, pp. 56-60; Donald L. Fennimore, Metalwork in Early America: Copper and Its Alloys in the Winterthur Collection (Winterthur, Delaware, 1996), p. 70, cats. 3a, 3b; Boston Post Boy, 29 October 1939, as cited at https://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hal/Immigrants/LLN/ps01/ps01_00 1.html; for Historic Deerfield's example, see https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?museum=all&t=objects&type=al l&f=&s=langworthy&record=0).

With pewter and other metals his first collecting passion, Joseph K. Ott was particularly enamored by this posnet. In a letter to Ledlie Laughlin, he recounted finding it filled with geraniums "on an island not too far from Newport." A handwritten receipt on a piece of paper lacking letterhead describes its purchase in March 1957: "Sold to Mr. Ott One Langworthy Pot Dated 1730 $35000," signed by a person named L.[T?]. Monty, probably the owner of the geraniums. Within two weeks of its purchase, Ott brought the "pot" to a Pewter Collectors' Club meeting and wrote to Charles F. Montgomery regarding Winterthur's examples (Letters, Joseph K. Ott to [Carl] Jacobs, 23 March 1957, Joseph K. Ott to Ledlie Laughlin, 6 April 1957, Joseph K. Ott to Amory Skerry, 6 April 1957, Charles F. Montgomery, Director, Winterthur Museum to Joseph K. Ott, 11 April 1957 and handwritten receipt from L.[T?]. Monty, 26 March 1957, all in Joseph K. Ott Papers).