- Slop Bowl
Explore Further
The slop bowl functioned as a receptacle for the teapot’s dregs and cold tea. Joseph Richardson’s accounts document its production by the 1740s, but the first mention in Paul Revere’s daybooks does not appear any earlier than 1790. They record the purchase of the Bayou Bend bowl by Bossenger Foster in May 1797, noting its weight, the value of the silver, and the charge for labor. This vessel is unique in Revere’s oeuvre, its inverted pear shape confirming the persistence of the Rococo idiom into the late 1790s.
Technical notes: The foot is cast, the bowl raised.
Related examples: Most closely related is a Myer Myers bowl in Antiques 64 (October 1954), p. 262.
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.
ProvenanceBossenger Foster (1742–1805) and Mary Craigie Foster, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Caroline Phelps Ingersoll (Mrs. Richard S. Ely, 1838–1922), by 1909; inherited by her daughter Maud (Mrs. John H. Gibbons, 1876–1953); [James Graham and Sons, New York]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1954; given to MFAH, 1969.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Engraved on foot: 2659
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
If you have questions about this work of art or the MFAH Online Collection please contact us.
