Property from the Collection of Roy J. Zuckerberg
An American Silver Teapot, Philip Syng, Jr., Philadelphia, Circa 1760
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
unusual wide-bodied baluster shape on molded foot, baluster finial, part-fluted cast spout, engraved on side with a crest above a vacant cartouche, with scratch weight 15 oz -18 dwt, marked twice under base (Yale 826) and with two leaf incuse marks (Belden d)
15 oz 15 dwt
488.3 g
height 6 ¼ in.
15.9 cm
Robert Jackson and Ann Gillooly, January 25, 1994.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Worldly Goods, 1999, no. 220
Jack L. Lindsey and Richard S. Dunn, Worldly Goods: The Arts of Early Pennsylvania, 1680-1758, 1999, no. 220, p. 190
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. 126, p. 248-249
The crest is that of Graham, probably for Henry Hale Graham (1731-1790), son of Rev. William Graham. He married in 1760 Abigail Pennell (1740-1797) of Chester, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and this teapot could likely have been a wedding gift or acquired shortly thereafter. Graham was a judge, and in 1789 a delegate to the Constitutional Convention.
Jeanne Sloane suggests that the leaf mark used by Philip Syng and Joseph Richardson Sr. was intended to be a sterling standard mark, as there were several initiatives to found an assay office in Philadelphia between 1753 and 1770.
A teapot by Syng with similar shape and engraved rococo decoration is in the collection of the U.S. Department of State (Heckscher/Bowman 1992, no. 53, p. 87).
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