- Sugar Bowl
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The complexities of this design’s origin have yet to be unraveled. While both the sugar bowl and creamer are stamped by the Boston silversmiths Vincent Laforme & Brother, they are closely related in design to a New York service by John Chandler Moore for Tiffany, Young & Ellis. The latter, like the Bayou Bend silver, also possesses a Louisiana provenance.
Technical notes: Both vessels are assembled from sheet silver. The finial of the sugar bowl is vented and soldered on. There is no indication that the cartouche of either vessel was ever engraved.
Related examples: Originally part of a more extensive service that was later dispersed among the Labatt descendants. For related silver by John Chandler Moore for Tiffany, Young & Ellis, see Mackie, Bacot, and Mackie 1980, pp. 26–27, no. 29; Antiques 130 (October 1986), p. 702.
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 (1828–1919) and David Cohen Labatt (1826–1893), New Orleans, m. 1849; inherited by their daughter Caroline (Mrs. Orlando Phelps, 1852–1941); inherited by her daughter Almira Louise (Mrs. Fred Renaud, Sr.), Houston; Mr. and Mrs. Fred Renaud, Jr., Houston; given to MFAH, 1989.
Exhibition History"Exhibited As We Are”: Fighting Racism with Art in the Age of Slavery,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Bayou Bend, April 29–August 16, 2015.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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