The beaker is more closely associated with Continental traditions than with English customs. Nonetheless, extant silver and pewter examples indicate that the vessel was most common in New England, despite the Continental origins of a greater percentage of the middle colonies’ populace. The earliest extant American examples are in silver, dating from the third quarter of the seventeenth century, and in pewter from the second quarter of the eighteenth century.

Technical notes: Beakers were fabricated in two parts; the base has a circular slot to receive the cylinder. 

Related examples: Montgomery 1939, p. 120, fig. 9c.

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.