The solid, double-scroll handle employed in the Hamlins’ work, as well as in Joseph Belcher’s, is a Rococo design that seems to be unique to their Rhode Island shops. By coincidence, the earliest known American references to mold making are in documents concerning business between Samuel Hamlin and William Proud, a Providence chairmaker and turner. In 1773, Hamlin incurred charges for both the production and alteration of molds, which included “To a mold for a handl.”  The accounts also detail that Proud carved handles for coffeepots, probably in a double-scroll pattern, raising the likelihood that the design for this element may have originated with the mold maker rather than the pewterer.

Technical notes: Painted in red on the underside: MET. MUS EXB. 1939, H2.16, referring to the landmark pewter exhibition held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Related examples: Fairbanks 1974, pp. 56, 110, no. 217.

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.