Description:
Pewter basin by Thomas Danforth Boardman with the early touchmark: "THOMAS D. BOARDMAN" in raised letters around an eagle in a shield shape in the center well. Basins, a form that served many purposes, were one of the commonest hollowware forms during the 18th and 19th centuries. Those basins that were 8" or less primarily served as individual eating bowls, or waste or slop bowls in tea services; larger examples were most often used as wash basins. Except for the hammering found on some English basins, there is little difference between English and American basins. The term "bowl" was rarely used in early records except when describing such forms as a christening bowl or sugar bowl. Thomas - and later his brother, Sherman (1787-1861) - was sent to train with his maternal uncle, Edward Danforth, a Hartford pewterer from 1796-1799, and completed his apprenticeship with another uncle, Samuel Danforth, in 1804. Thomas immediately started a small pewter business on Main Street in Hartford, in which his brother Samuel was a partner from 1810 to 1854. In his attempts to better use the stocks of old and new pewter, Thomas apparently hit upon the formula for britannia in 1806, which the English were exporting in the late 1700s; his firm was the first to manufacture britannia on a large scale in America. Thomas ran the business in Hartford, where most of the manufacturing was done, from 1804-1871 with several partners, including another brother, Timothy, and Lucius Hart and Franklin Hall; and under many names when they opened branch stores in New York City and Philadelphia and sold through agents all over the northeast. As a result, the Boardmans used over thirty marking dies during the life span of their business, often making it difficult to assign a date based on the mark.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+1302 |
