John David, Jr.
Cruet Stand

MakerAmerican, 1736–1798
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Cruet Stand
Datec. 1757–1798
Made inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
MediumSilver
Dimensions9 1/4 × 7 1/2 × 7 3/4 in. (23.5 × 19.1 × 19.7 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, museum purchase funded by The Friends of Bayou Bend
Object numberB.82.1
Not on view

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Department
Bayou Bend
Object Type
Description

Frames for casters were produced by English silversmiths by the early eighteenth century.  The cruet stand was also fitted with glass bottles for condiments such as dry mustard, sugar, pepper, catsup, vinegar, oil, and soy. Marked American examples are rare, as most colonial silversmiths probably chose to import cruet stands, it  being more efficient and economical than attempting to produce the complex castings themselves. The close similarity between the Bayou Bend stand and contemporary English examples suggests that John David’s shop derived the cast patterns directly from the latter.

Technical notes: The base is cast, with reinforcing rings for the handle, casters, and bottles. The handle is threaded and screws into the base. The results of a nondestructive energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis are on file at Bayou Bend.

Related examples: One other cruet stand bears John David’s stamp, in Quimby 1995, pp. 348–49, no. 334. Other Philadelphia examples include one attributed to Jeremiah Elfreth, at Delaware State Museum, Dover; another with the stamp of William Hollingshead in a private collection; and a third by Joseph Richardson, Jr., and Nathaniel Richardson, in Antiques 97 (April 1970), p. 512. English examples with Philadelphia provenances are discussed in Backlin-Landman 1969; Lindsey 1993.

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.


ProvenancePresumably for the Chew family; consigned to [Samuel T. Freeman, Philadelphia, 1970]; F. J. Carey III, Penllyn, Pennsylvania; purchased by MFAH, 1982.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Engraved in cartouche: the Chew arms impaling a set of unidentified arms
On handle: mark of John David [Buhler and Hood 1970, vol. II, p. 278, no. 853]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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scan from file photograph
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