Elisha Kirk
Porringer

CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Porringer
Datec. 1780–1790
Made inPennsylvania, United States
MediumPewter
Dimensions2 1/16 × 5 1/2 × 7 1/8 in. (5.2 × 14 × 18.1 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, gift of Miss Ima Hogg
Object numberB.53.1.6
Current Location
Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens
Folk Art Room
On view

Explore Further

Department
Bayou Bend
Object Type
Description

Elisha Kirk is the only maker of tab handle porringers who identified his vessels with a full name mark. He apprenticed with Isaac Jackson to learn clockmaking and at that time is believed to have picked up the rudiments for casting and finishing pewter. Eventually he left Chester County, resettling in York, where he is credited with introducing the tab-handle porringer to that locale. The contour and dimensions of the Bayou Bend porringer correlate with fully stamped Kirk examples, thereby forming the basis for this attribution.

Related examples: Winchester et al. 1959, pp. 188–89, no. 4; Hood 1965, p. 53, no. 193; Montgomery 1978, pp. 197, 155–56, 252; Pewter in American Life 1984, p. 86.

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.


ProvenanceT. Van C. Phillips, West Chester, Pennsylvania; [Charlotte and Edgar Sittig, Shawnee on Delaware, Pennsylvania]; [John S. Walton, New York]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1953; given to MFAH, by 1966.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
[no inscriptions]
[no marks]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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Porringer
Elisha Kirk
c. 1781–1790
Pewter
B.79.187.1
Porringer
Isaac Jackson
c. 1770–1807
Pewter
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Porringer
IC
c. 1750–1850
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c. 1788–1820
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Porringer
Thomas Melville
c. 1793–1796 or c. 1799–1824
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Porringer
Richard Lee, Sr.
c. 1788–1820
Pewter
B.2006.19
Porringer
Isaac Jackson
c. 1770–1807
Pewter
B.53.1.5
Porringer
Samuel Danforth
c. 1795–1816
Pewter
B.58.97
Porringer
Samuel Ely Hamlin
c. 1801–1820
Pewter
B.58.98
Porringer
Thomas Danforth Boardman
c. 1810–1830
Pewter
B.58.99
Porringer
Samuel Pennock
c. 1775–1825
Pewter
B.53.1.3
Porringer
Thomas Danforth Boardman
c. 1810–1830
Pewter
B.56.186.1