Description:
Silver apple-shaped teapot with a hinged, inset cover with a silver and wooden finial (possible replacement) encircled with half-leaves and and two bands of engraving around the edge; the pot lid encircled with a band of scrolling leaves, trellis work, and two human heads, one in profile with a laurel wreath and one full face, flanked by scrolls; shaped, upturned spout, a C-shaped wooden handle, and a raised stepped foot. The pot is marked "Henchman" in a rectangle on the base for Daniel Henchman (1730-1775), and engraved with the coat of arms of the Berry family (gules 3 bands or) and crest (griffin's head and neck erased per pale, indented argent and gules) in a rococo cartouche on the side. According to "Fairbairn's Crests," the Berry family crest was identified as from James William Middleton Berry, Esq., of Ballynegall, Westmeath. Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, Henchman apprenticed with silversmith Jacob Hurd (1702/3-1758) of Boston, married his daughter Elizabeth Hurd (b.1730) in 1753 (making him the brother-in-law of silversmiths Nathaniel and Benjamin Hurd), and worked in Boston from about 1750-1775. Henchman was an active goldsmith who served both the residents of Boston and individuals living elsewhere in New England; more than seventy pieces of his holloware and flatware are known to survive. Henchman was a good, and apparently an aggressive, craftsman. During January of 1773 he inserted an advertisement in the "Boston Evening Post" making uncomplimentary references to “those strangers among us who import and sell English plate.” He further said that he would make plate “equal in goodness and cheaper than they can import from London.” This throws an interesting light on the competition existing between English and colonial craftsmen of the day. Whether or not this was unfair is difficult to say, but there is little doubt that it put native workmen on their mettle and increased to no small degree their standards and their work. Certainly the best early American silver could compete with the fineness and quality of continental European workmanship.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+57.263 |
