PROBABLY SERAPHIM MASI OR SAMUEL LEWIS, WASHINGTON, D.C. CIRCA 1840

Gold and silver skippets were commissioned by the United States government between 1815 and 1871 from a select group of Washington D.C. jewelers including Samuel Lewis and Seraphim Masi. Made to protect the wax seals attached to important documents such as treaties, the skippets were suspended from the documents by cords of silk or woven silver. The custom of attaching skippets to treaties ended in 1871 after Secretary of State Hamilton Fish inquired of H.D.J Pratt, chief of the First Diplomatic Bureau, as to the style of the boxes and seals accompanying the treaties sent to the United States by foreign governments. Pratt responded that "Nearly all the treaties are in velvet covers with metallic seal boxes, mostly silver, are are arranged like those prepared here, with bullion cords and tassels. The French and some or the German States have not used metallic seals to recent treaties by have substituted paper seals..." Realizing the United States government could send treaties in a more economical fashion Pratt replied "Have no more fancy boxes made and no more metallic cases for seals." A nearly identical unmarked skipped attributed to Seraphim Masi in the de Young Museum at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (1983.37 a-b). Additional similar examples are in the collections of Winterthur (see Ian M. G. Quimby, American Silver at Winterthur, 1995, p. 307) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (50.145.45 a,b)