Property from the Collection of Roy J. Zuckerberg
An American Silver Tankard, Cornelius Kierstede, New York, Circa 1715
Estimate
50,000 - 80,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
tapered cylindrical with molded baseband below engraved scalloped cut-card work, flat-domed cover with shaped and engraved peak matching the base cut-card design, scroll thumbpiece, the hinge decorated with wrigglework and engraved to each side repeating scallop motif, scroll handle with applied multi-reel baluster, shaped square terminal with applied cherub head between engraved borders, the front finely engraved with contemporary interlace cypher JW within elaborate baroque cartouche with two cherub masks, scalework scrolls, laurel swags and perched exotic birds, marked CK in square at rim each side of handle and on cover near thumbpiece
33 oz 10 dwt
1041.8 g
height 7 ¼ inches
18.4 cm
John Waln (1694-1720), to his nephew or great-nephew
Nicholas Waln (1742-1813) and his wife Sarah Richardson (1746-1825), by descent to their son
William Waln (1775-1825), by descent to his daughter
Sarah Waln (1806-1886), by descent to her daughter
Mary Waln Wilcox Campbell (b. 1843);
Walter Morrison Jeffords (1882-1960), Glen Riddle, PA, purchased April 1935 from "Mr. Reath, Philadelphia" for $3,000, by descent to his son
Walter Morrison Jeffords, Jr. (1915-1990), m. Kathleen McLaughlin (d. 2003), sold
The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Walter M. Jeffords, Sotheby's, New York, October 29, 2004, lot 727
Jonathan Trace, Portsmouth, NH, January 29, 2010
Philadelphia 1938: The Pennsylvania Society of the Colonial Dames of America. Three Centuries of Historic Silver, 1938, no. 39
Moon, Robert C., M.D., The Morris Family of Philadelphia - Descendants of Anthony Morris" Philadelphia: privately printed, 1989, p. 196, illus. opposite p. 212
Pennsylvania Society of Colonial Dames, Three Sections of Historical Silver, June 1921, no. 78
Prime, 1938, no. 39
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. 61, p. 132-133
The monogram is that of the Waln family of Philadelphia, probably for John Waln (1694-1720), who married Jane Mifflin in 1717. Since this tankard descended to Nicholas and Sarah Waln, married in 1771, it is believed that the original owner was Nicholas's ancestor John Waln, a wealthy quaker from Philadelphia.
Cornelius Kierstede (1674-c. 1757) was born on Christmas Day to an established Dutch New York family. He became a freeman in 1698 when the fee was dropped as part of a political scheme; he registered again in 1702. He married in New York in 1703, but his first child was baptised in Albany, indicating time in that city; he was back in New York for the baptism of another child in 1706. In 1721/2 Kierstede became involved in copper mining outside New Haven. In 1727 he was still living partly in New York, though acquiring property in Connecticut, and by 1740/1 he was described as "of New Haven." In 1753 a New Haven court moved to administer his property "by reason of his advanced age & Infirmities" (Waters 2000 p. 143), and he may have died in New Jersey in 1757.
Cornelius Kierstede seemed to specialize in tankards, which comprise over half of his thirty-two surviving works. This tankard is closely related to examples by him at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Winterthur Museum, the New-York Historical Society, and the Art Institute of Chicago. As Jeanne Sloane notes in her book, all of these tankards are enriched by delicate ornament, characteristic of Kierstede. For example, the applied leaf borders have engraved details rather than the usual stamped motifs on borders by other New York makers. Kierstede also added subtle engraving and chasing to his handle terminals and thumbpieces of the tankards in this group.
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