Description:
Silver bow-type sugar tongs marked HURD in a rectangle once inside each cup at ends of two cast arms for Jacob Hurd (1702/3-1758), and engraved with "PM" over earlier initials on the arms. 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. The dealer, Robert Ensko of NYC, thought that "PM" was for Jean Paul Mascarene of Boston (1684-1760) based on a silver teapot made by John Coney (1655-1722) of Boston about 1710 and engraved with the arms of Jean Paul Mascarene, which now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mascarene was of French birth of a Huguenot family, who left France at the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685. Raised in Geneva, he moved to England about 1706 where he received an ensigncy in the Regiment of French Foot. He was stationed at Portsmouth in 1708 where he was commissioned a lieutenant. By “having the advantage of the French language”, the Governor of Nova Scotia, Samuel Vetch took an interest in Mascarene to use him in relations with French speaking inhabitants of his territory. In 1711, Mascarene was posted at Boston, Massachusetts, where he met and married Elizabeth Perry (d.1729) of Boston in 1714. Paul Mascarene had a number of posts, many of which were in Nova Scotia and he moved between Canso and Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia and Boston. He served as Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia from 1740-1749, and retired to Boston where he died.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+54.518 |
