Description:
This silver ewer was presented to lawyer and educator Epes Sargent Dixwell (1807-1899) of Boston, Massachusetts and owned by Dixwell and his wife Mary Ingersoll Bowditch Dixwell (1816-1893). (Given the date of 1839 scratched into the base - it is likely that this ewer was given to Dixwell upon his marriage to Mary Bowditch.) Epes Dixwell entered Harvard at the age of fifteen, graduating in 1827; he was by turns a sub-master at his secondary-school alma mater, Boston Latin School, and a Boston lawyer admitted to the bar in 1833. Dixwell was more interested in education than law. In the autumn of 1836, when he was only 29, Dixwell was appointed Headmaster at the Boston Latin School. By 1851, Dixwell departed the Latin School to head a successful private school that he founded himself, also in Boston. He was dedicated to the cause of educating students committed to working in industry and the trades and was a leader in the founding of the pioneering Cambridge Industrial School in 1879. He died in Cambridge at the beginning of December 1899. Epes Sargent Dixwell’s diaries are at the Massachusetts Historical Society, and they cover his time as Headmaster at the Boston Latin School. There may be more to discover about the gift’s context. Silver ewer, hand raised form, with wide broad spout, narrowing neck, attached cast scroll handle, shoulder of ewer has rolled anthemion border, body of jug swells at top and tapers to a scalloped base, the foot is round with a stepped base, a dense hardwood is within the silver base in order to provide strength and lighten the amount of silver used, the date "1839" is cut faintly into the wooden base. Engraved on front, “E. S. Dixwell Esq/ From his Pupils” and stamped “Pure Silver Coin / Jones, Lows, & Ball/Boston.” Jones, Lows, and Ball were retailers of silver, jewelry and other goods - not primarily manufacturers of silver. (The firm eventually became Shreve, Crump, and Low of Boston.) Commissioned to deliver grand presentation pieces, such as the vase presented to Daniel Webster in 1835 and the Britannia Cup to Samuel Cunard (1787 – 1865) in 1840, the partners were fortunate in their alliance with Boston silversmiths, especially the talented Obadiah Rich. It is not known whether Rich had a hand in the creation of this object. Condition: some shallow dents in side of ewer
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2023.16.1 |
