Maine Antique Digest May 2015

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Maine Antique Digest, May 2015 11-C
- AUCTION -
This silver drum-form teapot, made for Moses Michael Hays by Paul
Revere Jr. in Boston in 1783, has beaded borders, a fluted straight
spout, a scroll wood handle, and a slightly domed hinged cover with a
beaded border surmounted by a cast bud finial. The body is engraved
on one side with an “MRH” monogram with a foliate surround and is
marked under the base with Kane mark B and an old accession num-
ber. It is 6½" high x 9¾" long and 16 ounces and sold to a collector on
the phone for $233,000 (est. $200,000/300,000).
It is recorded in Revere’s daybook in 1783. Hays was Revere’s
only Jewish client and one of his major patrons; he placed 25 orders
with him between 1783 and 1792. This teapot and the accompanying
creamer were the first of Hays’s commissions from Revere. Both men
were Freemasons serving together as grand master and deputy grand
master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in 1791.
This is one of only six known drum-form teapots by Revere; four
are now in public collections—Yale UniversityArt Gallery, New Haven,
Connecticut; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Metropolitan
Museum, New York City; and the Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn,
Michigan. Another, with the initials “CC,” was sold at Christie’s in
January 2013 for $230,500 to an American foundation.
The silver cream jug, also made for Hays, with the mark of Paul
Revere Jr., Boston, 1783, is an inverted pear form on a circular foot,
with beaded borders, a gadrooned rim, and a double-scroll handle,
and is engraved beneath the spout with an “MRH” monogram within
a foliate surround and marked near the rim. An old accession number
is marked under the base. It is 5¼" high and 5 ounces. It’s recorded
in Revere’s daybook on February 5, 1783, and was made to accom-
pany the drum-shaped teapot. It sold on the phone for $68,750 (est.
$30,000/50,000) to a different buyer number.
A silver two-handled cup also
from the Farmington church, with
the mark of William Cowell Sr.,
Boston, circa 1715, sold for $52,500
(est. $40,000/60,000) to Deanne
Levison. It last sold at Sotheby’s on
January 21, 2005, for $156,000 (est.
$80,000/120,000) to Jonathan Trace.
There was not a lot of 19th-cen-
tury and early 20th-century silver
in this sale. A pair of Martelé silver
figural ewers by Gorham, Provi-
dence, Rhode Island, sold on the
phone to collectors for $125,000
(est. $100,000/150,000), and a pair
of Tiffany & Company seven-light
candelabra in the popular Chrysan-
themum pattern, made 1907-47, sold
to an absentee bidder for $62,500
(est. $40,000/60,000).
Another absentee bidder paid
$37,500 (est. $20,000/30,000) for an
Alaskan-style silver ice bowl made
by Gorham circa 1868, shortly after
the purchase of Alaska from Russia
for $7.2 million. Around that time
Bostonian Frederic Tudor (1783-
1864) had developed the technology
to harvest, market, and transport ice
to affluent clientele.
It is the earliest of the Gorham ice
bowls; it was featured in an 1868
issue of Harper’s Magazine and
appears on the cover of Charles Car-
penter’s 1982 book Gorham Silver.
Amore popular model of the bowl is
in the form of ice blocks with polar
bear handles.
Jennifer Pitman, head of sale,
said she was pleased that 104 of the
119 lots offered sold, which is an
87% sell-through rate, for a total of
$1,575,563.
Keeping the total down was the
failure of the Andrew Diamond
engraved silver serving plate,
11 3/8" diameter, by Jeremiah Dum-
mer, Boston, 1680-90, that had a
$250,000/350,000 estimate. It has
a molded border, a wide rim that is
finely engraved with three stylized
putti masks among a meandering
leafy vine with tulips, sunflow-
ers, and a carnation. The reverse is
engraved with an original mono-
gram “D” over “AI,” and the rim is
marked with Dummer’s mark “ID”
in a heart.
Previously unrecorded, this large
plate is the fifth known serving
plate of the early Colonial period.
It relates very closely to two others
made between 1680 and 1700, one
by Dummer’s contemporary Tim-
othy Dwight and the other by his
apprentice John Coney, each with
this highly unusual and elaborate
baroque engraving. They are both
at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
All three plates, while engraved by
different hands, appear to be based
on the same design source—a mean-
dering foliate vine punctuated with
carnations, tulips, and sunflowers.
The fourth plate, also by Coney, is
a little smaller and is at the Minne-
apolis Institute of Arts. Another by
Dummer and not mentioned in the
sale catalog was given by Edward
Shippen to St. Paul’s Church in Phil-
adelphia shortly after he arrived in
Philadelphia from Boston in 1693.
It was exhibited in Worldly Goods,
an exhibition at the Philadelphia
Museum of Art in 1999.
Dealers said there was not enough
time to study the piece and prove its
genealogy, but Christie’s called it “a
great discovery,” and Jeanne Sloane
of Christie’s thoroughly believes in
it. It is said to have turned up in a
box lot of silver at a small sale in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, sev-
eral years ago.
January 2015 will be remembered
as a time when too much silver was
offered in NewYork and a good time
to buy American silver.
The silver pepper box (left) with the mark of Jacob Hurd (Kane
mark B) under the base, Boston, circa 1740, with a pierced domed
cover with a knop finial, 3¾" high, 2 oz., sold to dealer Jonathan
Trace for $3500 (est. $3000/5000). It was the first of half a dozen
pepper pots Trace bought during the week. At this sale Trace also
bought the pepper pot (right) by John Hastier, New York, circa
1735, of cylindrical form, for $1250 (est. $800/1200). It has a large
cypher and may have served as a model for 20th-century copies
at the Cleveland Museum of Art and Bayou Bend. This one and
the copies have the same marks and engravings and are the same
weight. Both of the Hurd and Hastier pepper pots came from the
Martin Wunsch collection.
This silver teapot with the mark of Peter van Dyck, NewYork, 1725-
40, from the estate of Martin Wunsch, a baluster form on a slightly
splayed circular foot, with a faceted scroll spout and a wood handle,
the domed cover with a baluster finial, the body engraved with a
crest, the base engraved with “E*L” and scratch weight “21-16”
and “21,” marked near handle, 7½" high, 22 oz., sold for $87,500
(est. $100,000/150,000) to dealer Deanne Levison. It is one of three
teapots of this form by Peter van Dyck. One is at Yale, and one
sold at Christie’s in October 1986. The engraved crest is that of
Maitland. The monogram on the base is probably that of Elizabeth
Loutit (1732- after 1750), the great-aunt of Elizabeth Sproat Lenox,
whose mother was a first cousin once removed of Peter van Dyck.
This William Davis large silver wine cup with
the mark of Jeremiah Dummer, Boston, circa
1676, a bell-form cup with a baluster stem on
a splayed circular foot, engraved near the rim
“The gift of a friend W:D.” and marked on the
cup and under the foot with Kane mark A, “ID”
in a heart, 7¾" high, 13 oz. 10 dwt., sold for
$149,000 (est. $150,000/250,000) to Tim Martin
of S.J. Shrubsole, New York City. Davis (d. 1676)
was a wealthy Boston apothecary and merchant
and a founder of the Old South Church, which
played a role in the fight for American indepen-
dence and the abolitionist movement and has been at
the forefront of social justice for three centuries. The
current church building on Copley Square in Boston is
Venetian Gothic in style and a National Historic Land-
mark. This is one of five pieces of silver the Old South
Church offered in this sale to fund its mission to serve
the lost, impoverished, and marginalized; three
sold. Not shown, an extravagantly chased Ger-
man beaker with the mark of Walter Kop-
man, Hamburg, 1664-70, sold for $13,750 (est.
$5000/8000), and a tankard by John Coney sold
on the phone for $18,750.
Another small gem from the Martin Wunsch collection was
this exceedingly rare silver trencher salt with the mark of
Koenraet Ten Eyck, Albany, 1715-25. The tapering cylin-
drical vessel with a boldly gadrooned rim and a lobed bor-
der foot is marked in the shallow bowl. It measures 3 5/8"
diameter and weighs 2 oz. 10 dwt. It sold for $13,750 to Tim
Martin of S.J. Shrubsole, underbid by Jonathan Trace and
a collector in the salesroom. In January 1983 it sold for
$28,600 at Sotheby’s to dealer Bernard and S. Dean Levy,
New York City. A similar trencher salt is in the Museum of
the City of New York and illustrated in Elegant Plate: Three
Centuries of Precious Metals in New York City (2000) by Deb-
orah Dependahl Waters.
This silver caudle
cup from the Con-
gregational church
in Farmington,
Connecticut, with
the mark of John
Hull and Robert
Sanderson Sr., over-
struck with the mark
of Jeremiah Dummer,
Boston, circa 1670, 6½" wide
over handles, 7 oz. 10 dwt.,
sold on the phone for $81,250
(est. $70,000/100,000). From the estate of Martin Wunsch, it last sold at
Sotheby’s in January 2005 for $204,000 to Jonathan Trace. It is a balus-
ter form with scroll handles with ears. The base is engraved “F.C.,” and
it is marked on the side “RS” for Sanderson (Kane mark C), overstruck
by Jeremiah Dummer with Kane mark A, and the base has the mark of
John Hull (Kane mark C), overstruck by another mark for Jeremiah
Dummer (Kane mark A). Jeremiah Dummer was Hull and Sanderson’s
apprentice and overstruck his masters’ marks perhaps because he pur-
chased the cup for resale and then sold it to the Farmington congrega-
tion. The church ordered three more cups of this design from Dummer.