Description:
Letter from Samuel Shaw (1754-1794) to Dr. David Townsend (1753-1829), which is dated Dec. 20 1790 and refers to the Society of Cincinnati teaset (HD 56.105) and their friendship. The letter reads: "Accept, my dear friend, as a mark of my esteem and affection, a tea set of porcelain, ornamented with the Cincinnati and your cypher. I hope shortly after its arrival to be with you, and in company with your amiable partner, see whether a little good tea improves or loses any of its flavor in passing from one hemisphere to the other. Interim - believe me always. Yours, S. Shaw Canton in China. 20 Dec. 1790". Below the signature is a list: "2 teapots & stands, sugar bowl & stand, milk ewer, bowl & dish, 6 breakfast cups & saucers, 12 afternoon cups & saucers". The letter is done in iron gall ink on medium weight laid paper with a red "wax" seal. The Society of the Cincinnati was a fraternal group founded in 1783 at the end of the Revolutionary War by American and French military officers; the idea of the Society is credited to Major General Henry Knox (1750-1806) who was Washington's first Secretary of War (1785-94). Samuel Shaw was an aide-de-camp to General Henry Knox and became secretary of the Society's committee of officers in 1783. In 1784, Shaw was selected for the post of supercargo or ship's agent on the "Empress of China," the first American ship to sail for China; he later made several voyages between New York and Canton, and eventually became the United States’ first Consul to China from 1786 to 1794. While in Canton in 1784, Shaw wanted to have “something emblematic of the institution of the order of the Cincinnati executed upon a set of porcelain.” Shaw furnished a Chinese artisan with several painted designs (two engravings of Minerva, an elegant figure of a military man, and a medal of the Society) that he wished to have combined on porcelain. He realized that the artist “was unable to combine the figures with the least propriety; though there was not one of them which singly he could not copy with the greatest exactness.” While initially expressing his disappointment in the abilities of the Chinese decorators, Shaw eventually commissioned several porcelain tea sets decorated with the Society of the Cincinnati’s emblem using his own gold medal as a model. A shipping receipt and packing list dated January 3, 1791, shows that Shaw purchased nine tea sets for friends, for which he paid 20 dollars for their shipment to America: Henry Jackson, Mr. I. L. Stoddard, Dr. William Eustis, General Benjamin Lincoln, Mr. B. Burk, Governor Hancock, Constant Freeman, Dr. David Townsend, and Major General Henry Knox. Dr. Townsend's teaset was shipped to Boston from Canton on December 20, 1790. After suffering for eight months of a "liver complaint," Shaw died at sea near the Cape of Good Hope on his way home from Canton in 1794.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+56.105B |
