Description:
Silver porringer with raised circular bowl with an angled and bulging sides, domed center bottom. and cast handle pierced in a keyhole pattern with 11 voids, which is marked "D.PARKER" in a rounded rectangle on top of the handle for Daniel Parker (1726-1785), and has an inner inscription, "The Gift of Sarah Brown to her Daur. E. Thornton Jany 1769" in 18th century script, and an outer inscription, "The Gift of James Brown Thornton gr. grandson of Sarah Brown to his Granddaughter, Mary Calef Thornton, 1869" in 19th century script. In 1723, Sarah Cogswell (b.1696) married James Brown (1685-1735) of Ipswich, Massachusetts. Their daughter, Eunice Brown (1731-1784), married Timothy Thornton (1726-1787) in 1761; their son, James Brown Thornton (1771-1825) married Ruth Sewall (d.1860) in 1827; their son, James Brown Thornton (1794-1873), married Eliza B. Cook (b.1795) in 1817; their son Charles Cutts Goodkin Thornton (1830-1898) married Hannah Bartlett Calef in 1751; and their daughter was Mary Calef Thornton (b.1853-after 1930). In 1929 and 1930, Mary Calef Thornton sold two similarly-inscribed, silver porringers to the Boston dealer, Gebelein, who kept them until 1959 when he sold one to the then Chrysler Museum in Provincetown, Masachusetts, and this one to Historic Deerfield in 1963. The Chrylser Museum moved to Virginia in 1970/71, and the first porringer was deaccessioned and sold in 1992, offered to HD who did not take it, and then to Gebelein who did take it back, selling it again in 2001. In 2006, Northeast Auctions sold a pair of tablespoons by Edward S. Moulton (1778-1855) inscribed "The Gift of T. G. Thornton/ to his Grandson T. G. Thornton/ born August 25 1823" and "To my Niece, Mary Calef Thornton/ July 1868." Born in Charleston, Massachusetts, Daniel Parker moved to Boston about 1740 where he probably trained with Samuel Edwards (1705-1762) before staring his own successful workshop, advertising frequently in Boston newspapers between 1752-1767. There are currently only about 70 pieces of silver by Parker known. Daniel Parker was the paternal uncle of Issac Parker (1749-1805), silversmith of Deerfield and Boston.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+63.450 |
