A Pair of American Silver Canns, Benjamin Burt, Boston, Circa 1785

Firestone and Parson, Boston, 1992.

Patricia E. Kane, Colonial Massachusetts Silversmiths and Jewelers, 1998, p. 233

Jeanne Sloane, Artistry and Enterprise: American Silver 1660-1790 - Survey of American Colonial silver held in the collection of Roy J. Zuckerberg, New York, Smallwood & Stewart, 2018, no. 46, p. 94-95

Benjamin Burt (1729-1805) was the son of silversmith John Burt. He apprenticed with his father, and after his death with Benjamin's two older brothers, Samuel and William, but by 1754 both were deceased and Benjamin was head of the workshop. He became a very successful and prolific silversmith, second only to Paul Revere in the quantity of silver he produced in Colonial and Federal Boston. In 1800, he lead the goldsmiths of Boston in a memorial procession for George Washington, and his estate of $4,788.52, including "207 Oz. 15 dwt. of silver" represents a rare prosperous and commercially successful 18th century silversmith.

These canns, with their pear-shaped bodies and scroll handles, continue a rococo model of the 1760s; however, the bright-cut engraving indicates a date in the 1780s or early 1790s.