Description:
Silver footed salver or tazza with the touchmark "IC" over a fleur-de-lis in a heart for John Coney (1655/56-1722), and engraved with the initials "T/ IA" over the erased initials "R/ K D" on the base. In 1661, Thomas Blount in his "Glossographia" defined the salver as: "a new fashioned piece of wrought plate broad and flat, with a foot underneath, and is used in giving Beer, or other liquid thing, to save the Carpit and Cloathes from drops." John Coney was unquestionably one of the giants of early American silver; in quality, quantity, and variety, his work in silver is unsurpassed and some consider him as the preeminent goldsmith of the colonial era. Born in Boston (his father was the blacksmith, John Coney), Coney was apprenticed at the age of fourteen to the master silversmith, Jeremiah Dummer, with whom he would remain a close colleague. On his own, Coney created artistic and ambitious pieces of silver, including sugar boxes, monteiths, and inkstands. More than 225 pieces of silver by John Coney survive, attesting to his reputation as one of the most productive and versatile silversmiths of his time. He produced a tremendous variety of silver, simple or heavily ornamented, for both domestic and church use, created some of the most beautiful and complex pieces of his era. This salver has gadrooned edges around the plain tray and trumpet foot. The heavy reeding on the rim and foot of this salver is characteristic of the baroque style, which emphasized weighty proportions and rich, shimmering surface ornament. By this time, a period of great economic prosperity in Boston, silver had become an increasingly popular, and ever more opulent, form of displaying one’s wealth. Of the seven salvers recorded by Kane, six are in public collections: Our example, two in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, one at the NYC Metropolitan Museum of Art, one at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, one at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, and one at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College. One from the First Church of Christ, Congregational, of Farmington, Conn, sold at Sotheby's, Jan. 05, 2005, lot 402.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+3015 |
