Description:
Silver pepper box or caster with a slip-on domed, pierced cover, seamed cylindrical body, and molded base, which is marked "I.P" in a rectangle twice on side near the rim, and engraved with the initials "F*B" on the side of the box. These pots or casters were used to dispense sugar and other dry condiments at table. In 1965, the Flynts bought this pepper box from How of Edinburgh Ltd., London, as made by Job Prince (1680-1703/4) of Milford, Connecticut. Born in Boston, Job Prince moved to Milford about 1699; he is identified as a goldsmith in two deeds and a jeweler at the time of his death. His estate inventory lists silversmith tools, a pair of small bellows, two silver buckles, a tobacco box, tankard, porringer and six spoons but no pepper boxes, and Patricia Kane does not list any silver forms made by him. According to Patrica Kane, the mark "I.P" in a rectangle that appears on a distinctive group of pepper boxes has been attributed to Prince, but that attribution is doubtful. This attribution was made by John Marshall Phillips at the time of the Connecticut Tercenenary Exhibition (1935). Examples of similarly-marked pepper boxes are at here at Historic Deerfield, Yale University Art Gallery, in the collection of Mrs. Edsel B. Ford, and others have been on the marketplace (see "Antiques", June 1980, p. 1265, and American Art Association, April 2-3, 1937, lot 275). Kane suggests that the fact that this mark only appears on objects of one form suggests that it is the mark of a specialist working in an urban center, and in an email to Amanda Lange on Dec. 11, 2012, notes that they must be the work of some English provincial maker who specialized in the form. Arthur Grimwade lists several similar London silver marks for contemporary English smallworkers, and others are listed in "Jackson's Silver & Gold Marks." In 2006, Sotheby's auctioned a silver caster made by John Potwine of Boston but did not have a picture of its mark.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+65.153 |
