- Salver
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The salver was defined in 1661 as “a new fashioned piece of wrought plate, brought and flat, with a foot underneath” that was used “in giving Beer or other liquid thing to save the Carpit or Cloathes from drops.” The form’s versatility is implied in a 1700 Virginia inventory description of “one small salver or Bread Plate.” Seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century examples consist of a cylindrical tapering foot and a wide border that could be engraved. Stylistically, the Bayou Bend salver is slightly later in date, as evidenced by the thin, reeded rim substituted for the earlier border.
Technical notes: The foot and plate are raised and soldered together.
Related examples: Jones 1913, pp. 64–65, pl. XXVI (bottom), p. 97, pl. XXXVI (top); Buhler and Hood 1970, vol. 1, p. 59, no. 52; Buhler 1972 vol. 1, p. 83, no. 68; Sotheby’s, New York, sale 5142, January 26–28, 1984, lot 414.
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.
ProvenanceElizabeth Clark (Mrs. John Hancock, 1687–1760); inherited by her daughter-in-law Mary Hawke (Mrs. John Hancock, b. 1711); inherited by her son Ebenezer Hancock (1741–1819); inherited by his son John Hancock (1774–1830); inherited by his daughter Elizabeth (Mrs. Joseph Moriarity, 1814–1857); inherited by her daughter Elizabeth (Mrs. Charles H. Wood, 1844–1929); inherited by her daughter Mary (Mrs. George A. Cole, 1875–1954); inherited by her son Morton Cole; [Firestone and Parson, Boston]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1974; given to MFAH, 1974.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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