Peter Young's church cups rank among the finest work by any American pewterer. The form is based on a domestic vessel, the Protestants consciously embracing this shape as an alternative to the traditional chalice. His distinctive design appears to be unique, there being no known European or American prototype in pewter or silver. An eighteenth-century reference indicates that these vessels were called church cups, identifying their intended function for receiving and distributing the consecrated wine during the Holy Eucharist. A 1797 bill signed by Eva Young, the pewterer’s wife, specifies the sale of “2 church cups,’ and, indeed, many of these vessels survive in pairs. Unlike their silver counterparts, these cups are rarely engraved. Probably, no one in Young’s shop possessed the necessary skills, making it necessary to subcontract out the work.

Technical notes: The cup and foot were cast separately, and the stem probably as two halves, which were soldered together. Young, like so many pewterers, adapted his castings for different components. The cup’s domed foot could also function as a lid Ruckman 1962).

Related examples: Fairbanks 1974, p. 76, no. 288; Montgomery 1978, pp. 73, 75, no. 4–29; Barquist 1985, pp. 54–55, no. 248; and four unpublished examples at the Albany Institute of History and Art (acc. nos. 1937.5.2, .3; 1995.30.50.1, .2). Similar cups are marked by Timothy Brigden (1774–1819), who worked in Albany a generation after Young, suggesting that some type of relationship existed between these craftsmen.

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.