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Lot Essay
The engraved monograms are those of Samuel Pickering Gardner (1767-1843) and his wife Rebecca Russell Lowell. Samuel Pickering Gardner was born in Salem on 14 May 1767 to John Gardner (1760-1792) and his second wife Elizabeth Pickering (1737-1823). He graduated from Harvard in 1786 and soon after moved to Charleston, South Carolina where he engaged in the mercantile business with his older brother John. Upon the death of his brother John in 1794, Samuel returned to Boston and re-connected with his former classmate John Lowell, Jr., son of the Hon. John Amory Lowell (1743-1802) of Roxbury.
Although Gardner was a frequent visitor to the Lowell home, the Judge must have been surprised when on 13 June 1794 he received a letter from Gardner proclaiming the twenty-eight-year old’s affections for the Judge’s fifteen-year-old daughter Rebecca. Gardner writes: “Such was the extreme improbability of even the existence of sentiments which I possess that they were either not seen, or if seen at all, were probably misconstrued. To prevent any erroneous conclusions I determined (after considerable conflict with my feelings) to discover to you an attachment which (from the disparity of age), I have not dared to disclose to anyone; and I dread your disapprobation will be equal to your surpriz [sic.], when I inform you the object of it is your daughter Rebecca. [She] is probably ignorant of the passion she has excited in me.” In asking for permission to court Rebecca, Gardner asks of the Judge “Whatever your decision I beg you to return me an answer in writing.” and should the answer be no, Garner requests that his sentiments “may forever remain a secret with yourself and Mrs. Lowell.” Three days later the reluctant Judge wrote to Gardner granting permission to pursue a courtship with Rebecca but requested that they should not marry until after her eighteenth birthday. After a long engagement the couple married on 19 September 1797 (Chaim M Rosenberg, Yankee Colonies Across America, Cities Upon the Hill, 2015, pp.128-129. They raised six natural children as well as an adopted daughter at their home on Summer Street, where the family lived for over fifty years. Samuel died on 16 December 1843, and Rebecca on 11 May 1853.
A circa 1704 tankard by John Noyes, Boston, owned by the couple and engraved This Tankard belonged to John Gardner Great Grand father of Saml. P. Gardner and was probably made prior to the year 1700, is in the collection of the Museum Fine Arts, Boston (see Jeanne Falino and Gerald W. R. Ward, Silver of the America’s, 1600-2000 American Silver in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2008, no. 420. pp. 511-512). A pair of circa 1730 black walnut chairs, descended from the Gardners through their grandniece, Eliza Blanchard, are in the Bayou Bend Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (see David B. Warrenn, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff, American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection, 1998, pp. 22-23).
The form of this teapot relates closely to a 1798 coffee pot attributed to Revere Jr. also in the collection of the Museum of Fine Art, Boston (Falino and Ward, 2008, pp. 212-13, fig. 172). Engraved with the monogram of William Smith and his wife Hannah Carter, the coffee pot bears a nearly identical swan-neck spout, concave neck and ball-form finial to that of the present lot. A Revere Jr. two-handled punch urn and cover, dated 1796, and presented to Samuel Brown, Esqr. by the Boston Theater, also displays a simplified vase-form silhouette with high domed cover and ball finial (see David Warren, Katherine S. Howe and Michael K. Brown, Marks of Achievement: Four Centuries of American Presentation Silver, 1987, no. 110, p. 98). A circa 1800 Revere Jr. sugar urn and cover with similar high domed cover and bud finial was sold in these rooms on 17 January 2008, lot 155.
Although Gardner was a frequent visitor to the Lowell home, the Judge must have been surprised when on 13 June 1794 he received a letter from Gardner proclaiming the twenty-eight-year old’s affections for the Judge’s fifteen-year-old daughter Rebecca. Gardner writes: “Such was the extreme improbability of even the existence of sentiments which I possess that they were either not seen, or if seen at all, were probably misconstrued. To prevent any erroneous conclusions I determined (after considerable conflict with my feelings) to discover to you an attachment which (from the disparity of age), I have not dared to disclose to anyone; and I dread your disapprobation will be equal to your surpriz [sic.], when I inform you the object of it is your daughter Rebecca. [She] is probably ignorant of the passion she has excited in me.” In asking for permission to court Rebecca, Gardner asks of the Judge “Whatever your decision I beg you to return me an answer in writing.” and should the answer be no, Garner requests that his sentiments “may forever remain a secret with yourself and Mrs. Lowell.” Three days later the reluctant Judge wrote to Gardner granting permission to pursue a courtship with Rebecca but requested that they should not marry until after her eighteenth birthday. After a long engagement the couple married on 19 September 1797 (Chaim M Rosenberg, Yankee Colonies Across America, Cities Upon the Hill, 2015, pp.128-129. They raised six natural children as well as an adopted daughter at their home on Summer Street, where the family lived for over fifty years. Samuel died on 16 December 1843, and Rebecca on 11 May 1853.
A circa 1704 tankard by John Noyes, Boston, owned by the couple and engraved This Tankard belonged to John Gardner Great Grand father of Saml. P. Gardner and was probably made prior to the year 1700, is in the collection of the Museum Fine Arts, Boston (see Jeanne Falino and Gerald W. R. Ward, Silver of the America’s, 1600-2000 American Silver in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2008, no. 420. pp. 511-512). A pair of circa 1730 black walnut chairs, descended from the Gardners through their grandniece, Eliza Blanchard, are in the Bayou Bend Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (see David B. Warrenn, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff, American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection, 1998, pp. 22-23).
The form of this teapot relates closely to a 1798 coffee pot attributed to Revere Jr. also in the collection of the Museum of Fine Art, Boston (Falino and Ward, 2008, pp. 212-13, fig. 172). Engraved with the monogram of William Smith and his wife Hannah Carter, the coffee pot bears a nearly identical swan-neck spout, concave neck and ball-form finial to that of the present lot. A Revere Jr. two-handled punch urn and cover, dated 1796, and presented to Samuel Brown, Esqr. by the Boston Theater, also displays a simplified vase-form silhouette with high domed cover and ball finial (see David Warren, Katherine S. Howe and Michael K. Brown, Marks of Achievement: Four Centuries of American Presentation Silver, 1987, no. 110, p. 98). A circa 1800 Revere Jr. sugar urn and cover with similar high domed cover and bud finial was sold in these rooms on 17 January 2008, lot 155.