A Rare American Silver Chased Creamer, Joseph Richardson, Sr., Philadelphia, Circa 1755

Robert Jackson and Ann Gillooly, January 31, 1998

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. 128, p. 252-253

The monogram is probably that of Lawrence Growden (1694- 1770) of Philadelphia and Falls Township, Bucks County, and his wife Sarah Biles (d. 1781), married in 1740. Growden was a wealthy Quaker and Richardson's uncle, who began to purchase silver from his nephew in the late 1740's. The family estate in Bucks County, Growden Mansion or Trevose Manor, is now a museum.

In his wife's will of 1781, Sarah bequeathed the majority of her silver to her sister Mary Smith, including a "large Silver Salver, Silver Cream Pot, Silver Pepper Box, Silver Sauce Boat, Case of Silver handle Knives and Forks, and Silver Slop Bowl." (Bucks County, register of Wills, 1713-1906, vols. 3-4. 1760-1786, case #1908, p. 337).

Jeanne Sloane discusses the chasing on this creamer in her book and notes that "the workshops of Richardson and Syng produced exceptionally fine examples decorated with this technique, undoubtedly executed for them by foreign-trained specialist chasers. We can only know of these chasers by their advertisements as, unlike engravers, they did not sign their work. One slightly later immigrant from Geneva, John Anthony Beau, announced his arrival in Philadelphia in 1772 as "A CELEBRATED CHASER" capable of decorating "coffee and tea pots, sugar-boxes, cream-pots, &c. in the genteelest and newest taste"(The Pennsylvania Pocket and the General Advertiser, July 13, 1772 as quoted in Barquist 2001, pp. 53-54). This cream jug was probably chased by the same specialist craftsman who used a similar flower basket motif on two cream jugs and a snuffbox by Joseph Richardson."