Louis Boudo
Pap Boat

MakerAmerican, 1786–1827
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Pap Boat
Datec. 1809–1827
Made inCharleston, South Carolina, United States
MediumSilver
Dimensions1 7/16 × 2 1/4 × 5 1/2 in. (3.7 × 5.7 × 14 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, gift of William J. Hill
Object numberB.85.12
Current Location
Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens
Metals Study Room
Exposé

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Department
Bayou Bend
Object Type
Description

The pap boat is a simple vessel for feeding infants and invalids pap, a concoction of bread or flour sprinkled with sugar combined with milk or water.  The form appears in English silver by the second decade of the eighteenth century and in the American colonies by 1738, when Joseph Richardson records making one.   The number of extant Charleston examples attests to its popularity there, and Louis Boudo’s are distinctive for the addition of a decorative scallop shell on the back. The form persisted well into the nineteenth century, as evidenced by Tiffany’s 1880 Blue Book.

Related examples: An identical pap boat is pictured in Warren 1968, I-I-B. A simpler example is recorded in a private collection.

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.


Provenance[Argentum Antiques, San Francisco]; purchased by William J. Hill (1934–2018), Houston, 1985; given to MFAH, 1985.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Engraved on side: JRB
On base: mark of Louis Boudo [Belden 1980, p. 69]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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