- Tea Set
Sugar bowl: 9 1/8 × 3 3/8 × 4 7/8 in. (23.2 × 8.6 × 12.4 cm)
Cream pot: 6 1/2 × 2 7/8 × 5 1/4 in. (16.5 × 7.3 × 13.3 cm)
Explore Further
In 1783 Henry Lupp advertised that he “Makes and sells . . . articles, in the modern and the ancient mode,” and his tea set is arguably the most mature expression of the latter in New Jersey silver. Its pierced galleries, beading, and diagonal orientation are clearly inspired by Philadelphia, and the engraving is indebted to New York; however, the teapot’s novel configuration is unprecedented. The accompanying vessels are more predictable, the sugar dish inspired by a classical urn, the cream pot by an inverted helmet.
Technical notes: The top of each foot has an engraved border. The teapot sockets are beaded, the wooden handle is original, its lid is not hinged, and the finial is soldered on. Both the sugar urn and cream pot are assembled in a similar manner.
Related examples: A sugar urn and cream pot at the Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey (Williams 1949, pp. 88–90).
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.
ProvenanceBrigadier General Anthony Walton White (1750–1803) and Margaret Ellis White (1767–1850, m. 1783), New Brunswick, New Jersey; inherited by their daughter Elizabeth Mary (Mrs. Thomas M. Evans, 1792–1861); inherited by her daughter Elizabeth Margaret Evans (1813–1898) or her son Thomas Sunderland Evans (1819–1868); inherited by Thomas Evans’s daughter Transita Isabella (Bellita) Evans (Mrs. Stephen Watts Kearney, before 1868–1950); inherited by Dr. and Mrs. Royall M. Calder, San Antonio; purchased by Alice Nicholson Hanszen (1900–1977), Houston; given to MFAH, 1966.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Engraved on base: M-E [possibly Mary Evans]
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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