The majority of glassware sold and used in America prior to the War of 1812 was imported from Europe. Seal bottles, like this one, take their name from the applied glass disks on the sides that resemble the wax seals impressed on the closures of letters. The glassblower stamped the bottle offered here with "T. C. Pearsall" for Thomas Cornell Pearsall. The son of a wealthy New York merchant, today Pearsall is most remembered for his surviving possessions, including a suite of seating furniture, c. 1810, attributed to the New York cabinetmaker Duncan Phyfe (owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art). His taste for the high life was noted by his contemporaries, one of whom wrote that Pearsall was a "bon vivant, who gave the best dinners & best wines, but never performed a single act of benevolent duty…and fell a sacrifice to high living." This bottle is one of five known examples made for Pearsall. Two others are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum; the other two are in the Museum of the City of New York. Three of the five bear paper labels indicate that they were filled with Madeira wine.