Samuel Hamlin
Cann

MakerAmerican, 1746–1801
MakerAmerican, 1774–1864, active 1801–1856
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Cann
Datec. 1767–1856
Possible placeProvidence, Rhode Island, United States
Possible placeMiddletown, Connecticut, United States
Possible placeHartford, Connecticut, United States
MediumPewter
Dimensions4 9/16 × 3 15/16 × 5 9/16 in. (11.6 × 10 × 14.1 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, gift of Miss Ima Hogg
Object numberB.61.46
Current Location
Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens
Murphy Room
On view

Explore Further

Department
Bayou Bend
Object Type
Description

The solid, double-scroll handle employed in the Hamlins’ work, as well as in Joseph Belcher’s, is a Rococo design that seems to be unique to their Rhode Island shops. By coincidence, the earliest known American references to mold making are in documents concerning business between Samuel Hamlin and William Proud, a Providence chairmaker and turner. In 1773, Hamlin incurred charges for both the production and alteration of molds, which included “To a mold for a handl.”  The accounts also detail that Proud carved handles for coffeepots, probably in a double-scroll pattern, raising the likelihood that the design for this element may have originated with the mold maker rather than the pewterer.

Technical notes: Painted in red on the underside: MET. MUS EXB. 1939, H2.16, referring to the landmark pewter exhibition held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Related examples: Fairbanks 1974, pp. 56, 110, no. 217.

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.


ProvenanceCharles F. Hutchins, Worcester, Massachusetts; [Whimsy Antiques, Arlington, Vermont]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1961; given to MFAH, by 1966.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
[no inscriptions]
Left of handle: mark of Samuel Hamlin [Laughlin 1940, vol. I, pl. XLIX, no. 330a]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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