The salient feature of this sugar bowl is the chainlike applied ornament on the lid and body. A technique that dates back to antiquity, the effect is achieved by the application of two molten threads, which are then pinched at regular intervals to create the appearance of chain links. This method, which became fashionable in England in the late eighteenth century, is thought to have been brought to America by Thomas Cains, an English glassmaker who came to Boston in 1812. Attribution of glass with this sort of ornament is based on an example that descended in the family of the glassmaker.

Related examples: DAR Museum, Washington, D.C. (Garrett et al. 1985, p.116, fig.114); Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge, Massachusetts (Wilson 1972, p. 223, fig. 178); MMA (acc. no. 69.168); St. Louis Art Museum (acc. no. 484:61); Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire (Doty 1979, p. 136); McKearin and McKearin 1941, p. 55, no. 3; private collection. An engraved, footed sugar bowl made by Cains is at MMA (Davidson and Stillinger 1985, p. 262, no. 394).

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.