Early silver of Connecticut and its makers

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Early silver of Connecticut and it -0
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EARLY SILVER OF CONNECTICUT
AND MAKERS
ITS
By GEORGE MUNSON CURTIS
INTERNATIONAL SILVER CO.
MERIDEN, CONN.
1913
(Yv
UK
Copyright, 1913
Bythe International Silver Co.
TheB&rtaPress
—
Boston NewYork
EARLY SILVER OF CONNECTICUT
AND ITS MAKERS.
O those who are lovers of old plate,
-*- and have become familiar with the
various shapes and designs characteristic of
Colonial days, it is interesting to note the
slow evolution and gradual change in
church and domestic silver from the simple
and yet beautiful vessels of the seventeenth
century to the more elaborate forms and
greater variety of articles of the eighteenth
century, which the growing luxury and
more complex life of the later period
demanded.
J
Judging by the examples that have sur-
vived, silver utensils of the seventeenth
century were limited to spoons, the caudle-
cup, the beaker, the chalice, or standing
cup, the tankard, the flagon, and what are
called to-day wine- tasters. The orna-
mentation on the earliest of these pieces
suggests the conventional flower designs
found on oak furniture of the same period.
The old inventories and wills, however,
give us a list of articles once in common
use which are doubtless no longer in exist-
ence.
[5]
EARLY SILVER OF CONNECTICUT AND ITS MAKERS
Dr. Gershom Bulkeley died in 1713 in
Glastonbury. He was a man of consider-
able distinction and wealth. By the terms
of his will he bequeathed to a son a silver
retort and to a daughter a silver cucurbit,
a species of retort, shaped like a gourd,
used, perhaps, to distil perfumes and
essences, once the duty of an accomplished
housewife.
In various inventories frequent mention
is made of silver dram-cups, always lower
in value than spoons. They were minia-
ture bowls with an ear-shaped handle on
each side, and called dram-cups because
they comfortably held a dram, or spoonful,
and were used for taking medicine. Some-
times they were of pewter. Modern col-
lectors have called them wine-tasters, which
is clearly a misnomer. Our ancestors were
not wine-tasters they drank from beakers,
:
caudle-cups, and tankards.
Other articles mentioned are silver plat-
ters and punch-bowls, whistles, hair-pegs,
seals, bodkins, thimbles, clasps with glass
centres, chains or chatelaines with scissors
and other articles attached, shoe and knee
buckles, and last, but not least, silver hat-
[6]
EARLY SILVER OF CONNECTICUT AND ITS MAKERS
bands,*worn onlyby thosewho affected the
highest type of fashionable attire. Articles
of gold were toothpicks, cuff-links, stay-
pins, rings, brooches, buttons, and beads
ad libitum. Doubtless a search through
other inventories would reveal many other
articles of silver and gold.
In the eighteenth century the colonist
had greater wealth, and life had become
more formal, and luxury more common.
As a result, the silversmith had increased
the variety of his manufactures, and used
more elaborate designs, although he still
clung to a simplicity of line and form that
was characteristic of all early industrial art
in America.
/
Although the earliest known silversmiths
in New England had either learned their
craft in England or been taught the trade
by English workmen, there was no attempt
to adopt later the elaborate baronial de-
signs of the mother country. Simpler
forms were more in keeping with the simple
life of this country.
*Captain Giles Hamlin of Middletown (died in 1689 ae. 67)
was a prominent figure in the early days of the Colony; he was
theownerofasilverhat-bandwhichhebequeathedtohisdaughter.
The portraitof Pocahontas dated 1616 depicts hercrowned with
a mannish headgear, encircled by a golden hat-band.
[7]
Seventeenth Century Plate
Caudle Cup
Early Flagon
[8]