Description:
Rococo teakettle-on-stand in patinated copper with a slightly-raised lid with an acorn finial over molded lines extending out in a star shape ending in small, etched diamond shapes; tin-lined bulbous body, scrolling handle with a rattan cover; and a curved spout ending serpent-shaped mouth, which sits on a tripod stand with a cylindrical spirit burner with a lid with a wooden knob, supported between the tripod legs. The kettle descended in the Warren family of Massachusetts, and according to family tradition, was used with the kettle stand (HD 58.181). The kettle was said to be originally owned by the playwright/historian, Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814) of Plymouth, Massachusetts, the daughter of Colonel James Otis and Mary Allyne Otis, and sister of orator and patriot James Otis (1725-1785), who married James Warren (1726-1808) on Nov. 12, 1754. An outspoken opponent of British rule, James Warren became an active Patriot and associated with John and Abigail Adams and Samuel Adams. After the death of Joseph Warren (1741-1775) at the Battle of Bunker Hill, James Warren succeeded him as president of the Provisional Congress; he also served during the war first as Paymaster General, where he worked with George Washington in Cambridge, then as a member of the Continental Navy Board. After the war, Warren's fear that the ideals of the Revolution were being forgotten in the formation of the new government put him at odds with many leaders, particularly Governor John Hancock, and made it increasingly difficult for him to gain election to state office. Mercy Otis Warren participated in the Patriot cause, writing anti-British, anti-loyalist satirical plays in verse beginning with the 1772 publication of her play "The Adulateur," the first in a long line of similar propagandistic pieces published anonymously; she continued to write and publish after the war, issuing a volume of poetry under her own name in 1790, and publishing her three-volume "History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution" in 1805. The MFA in Boston has the circa 1763 James and Mercy Warren portraits by John Singleton Copley (1738-1815), which descended from Winslow Warren (1795-1870), the son of Henry Warren (1764-1828) and grandson of James and Mercy. This stand was bought from Priscilla Harding (1900-1991) of Sandwich, Massachusetts, the daughter of Kathleen Warren (1875-1931) and Henry Brewer Harding (1869-1929), grandaughter of James Warren (1846-1913) and Catherine Ruggles Robbins (1855-1887), great-grandaugher of George Warren (1807-1866) and Elizabeth Hedge (1813-1891), and great-great grandaugher of Henry Warren (1764-1828).
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+58.182 |
