Cesar Ghiselin (ca. 1663–1733) and Johannes Nys were the first to establish the silversmith’s craft in Philadelphia. Ghiselin was among the thousands of French Protestants forced to leave their homeland to escape religious persecution. Nys's surname also suggests a Huguenot origin; however, he was born in New York and presumably apprenticed there, as evidenced by the cut-card bands and spiral-shaped thumbpieces employed on his tankards. In Philadelphia silver, these elements are unique to Nys’s work, implying that he had little or no influence on subsequent generations of silversmiths.

Technical notes: The terminal is shield shaped. The lid is attached by a five-part hinge. The bezel has been removed.

Related examples: Ten Nys tankards are recorded. The Bayou Bend tankard most closely relates to that in Buhler 1972, vol. 2, pp. 599–600, no. 512. Cut-card bands on other objects bearing Nys’s stamp include Keyes 1936; Harrington 1939, pp. 99 (top), 117; Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, sale 3691, November 12–16, 1974, lot 1028; Quimby 1995, pp. 409–10, no. 418.

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.