International studio (81.1925)

mceRriAcionAL

were spoons, caudle cups, beakers and wine ranging in date from 1640 to 1850, is on display
tasters, or rather these are all that have come at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In this col-
down to us. There were undoubtedly many others lection are many pieces made by the versatile
which have not come to light or which were Paul Revere.

melted down long ago. By the eighteenth century In Philadelphia the important smiths were
many other pieces appeared; tankards, porringers, Caesar Ghiselin, the Richardsons and the Syngs.
cans (the name given to all sorts of cups and Francis Richardson, born in 1701, was the first of
mugs) and, as the price of tea decreased and tea the famous Richardson family and the first smith
drinking became more popular, teapots, chocolate known to have plied his trade in Philadelphia,
pots, bowls, sugar bowls, cream jugs, hot-water His son Joseph carried on his father's trade and
urns, strainers, sugar tongs was probably the greatest of

and casters. We owe the sur-
vival of many pieces, espe-
cially bowls and drinking ves-
sels, to the fact that they
were often bequeathed to the
church after a period of do-
mestic use. Beakers, caudle
cups and mugs, after years of
service in the cause of con-
viviality, were pressed into
the pious service of religion
and none thought shame
therefor.

In these dry days we turn
with little comfort to the
thought that art in America

the line. It is easy to place
his period when we realize
that it was this Joseph Rich-
ardson who fashioned the
breast ornaments which the
Quakers used to establish
friendly relations with the
Indians. There were three
generations of the Syng
family. The first of them,
Philip Syng, probably learned
his trade in Dublin and his
son was the famous Philip
Syng II, a close friend of
Benjamin Franklin and a
member of the Junto. He
owes much to the unham- SILVE1! and steel *utmeg grater, in the macie tne inkwell now in In-

clearwater collection , .

pered thirst of our ancestors. dependence Hall in which the
Every social and business quills used in signing the
occasion was drenched with liquor—the signing Declaration of Independence were dipped,
of a will, the formation of a partnership; be- One of the earliest New York smiths was
trothals, marriages, deaths, baptisms. In one Cornelius Kierstede (1698). His wife, who knew
New England village of forty families three thou-
sand barrels of cider were put away for the winter s™ S™J*V™ *™>™ ED™S (c-1670-1746),

r tt t T i • boston. in the clearwater collection

supply in 1721. Each family usually had thirty
or forty barrels on hand. Toddy and punch were
popular beverages; but "flip" was at once a liba-
tion and a rite. A law passed against the drinking
of healths was repealed in 1645 because it could
not be enforced.

Almost all that is known today about colonial
silver has been learned since 1876 and the greater
part of this information has been compiled since
1906. In 1876, due to the Centennial Exposition
in Philadelphia, there was an awakening interest
in the silver made in this country; but this was
only a beginning. It was not until 1906 when at
the suggestion of F. H. Bigelow an exhibition was
held in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, that
we really began to appreciate the beauty and the
extent of our inheritance. In the beginning the
difficulties of collecting were enormous because
no one knew where to look. One of the pioneer
collectors was Judge Clearwater of Kingston, New
York, whose collection of over six hundred pieces,

august 1925

three fifty-three