Description:
Silver, apple-shaped teapot decorated with the arms of the Coffin family (a crest - a "demi-griffin segreant," and the arms - "[Az] three bezants between ne crosses crosslet [or]") on the side, and the shoulder and cover engraved with strapwork, floral decoration, and two human heads, which is marked "IHURD" in a cartouche once on base for Jacob Hurd (1702/3-1758). Jacob Hurd has long been recognized as one of the leading New England silversmiths of the mid-18th century. The patriarch of a prominent Boston silversmithing family, he produced a wide range of tablewares in the Queen Anne style. During Hurd’s lifetime the taste for tea drinking became popular, and he met the demand for new silver forms with some of the earliest New England teapots known today. Teapots from the New York area were frequently fashioned with a pear- or bell-shaped body, but the partrons of New England silversmiths seemed to prefer globular apple-shaped teapots. The English Coffin family had lived at Portledge in Devonshire since William the Conqueror (c.1027/28-1087), also known as William I of England who was the King of England from the Christmas of 1066 until his death. Sir William Coffin was master of the Horse at the marriage of King Henry VIII (1491-1547) to Anne Boleyn (1501/1507-1536) in 1533. Variations of the Coffin family arms were also used by a collateral American branch of the Coffin family which descended from Tristram Coffin (1605/09-1681) who emigrated from Brixton in Devonshire in 1642, first settling in Salisbury, Massachusetts, and later moving to Haverhill, Mass., where he was County Magistrate. In 1660, he moved to Nantucket Island, Mass., where he and others bought Nantucket from the Indians. His descendents included Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin (1759-1839), the son of Nathaniel Coffin (1725-1780) of Boston who was the last Receiver-General and Cashier of this Majesty's Customs at Boston, who was born in Boston and entered the British navy in 1773, served during the Revolutionary War, and returned to England. Many members of the Coffin family were loyalists who moved to Canada or Britain during the Revolutionary War. There is a similar coat of arms on a circa 1705 silver salver or paten made by John Allen (1671-1760) and John Edwards (1670-1746) of Boston who were partners from about 1696 until about 1702, which was lent by Mrs. Richard H. Morgan to the exhibition at the "American Church Silver of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, with a Few Pieces of Domestic Plate, Exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, July to December, 1911." The paten was later supposedly in the Jeffords silver collection, which was sold at Sotheby's NY, on Oct 28-29, 2004. Also see HD 2010.8.5 for a Chinese export porcelain plate with the impaled arms of Coffin. This teapot was one of 92 pieces in the Watson-Crichton Collection (Watson #6) acquired by the Flynts in 1954 from Victor A. Watson (1897-1974), son-in-law and partner of Lionel Alfred Crichton (1866-1938), a retail silversmith and dealer in antique plate with shops in London, New York City and Chicago. Crichton, who was considered one of Britain's most prominent silver dealers of the early 20th century, started collecting American colonial silver for his own personal interest after WWI; the Watsons refused to sell the collection until meeting the Flynts. American silver found in England with English family heirlooms has been called "loyalist silver," since many pieces came to England with returning loyalists; however, this broadly-used term does not allow for pieces sent as gifts and taken over later.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+54.102 |
