The salver was defined in 1661 as “a new fashioned piece of wrought plate, brought and flat, with a foot underneath” that was used “in giving Beer or other liquid thing to save the Carpit or Cloathes from drops.” The form’s versatility is implied in a 1700 Virginia inventory description of “one small salver or Bread Plate.”  Seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century examples consist of a cylindrical tapering foot and a wide border that could be engraved. Stylistically, the Bayou Bend salver is slightly later in date, as evidenced by the thin, reeded rim substituted for the earlier border.

Technical notes: The foot and plate are raised and soldered together.

Related examples: Jones 1913, pp. 64–65, pl. XXVI (bottom), p. 97, pl. XXXVI (top); Buhler and Hood 1970, vol. 1, p. 59, no. 52; Buhler 1972 vol. 1, p. 83, no. 68; Sotheby’s, New York, sale 5142, January 26–28, 1984, lot 414.

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff.  American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.