An Important American Silver Teapot Engraved With a Profile of John Wilkes, Daniel Henchman, Boston, Circa 1765-70, the engraving attributed to Nathaniel Hurd

The arms are those of Gard(i)ner of Massachusetts.

The engraving can be attributed to Nathaniel Hurd. Daniel Henchman apprenticed with Jacob Hurd, Nathaniel's father, probably at the same time as Nathaniel as they were exactly the same age. Daniel then married Jacob's daughter and Nathaniel's sister Elizabeth in 1753. The two younger silversmiths were known to work together on some commissions including the monteith for John Wentworth, Governor of New Hampshire (Patricia E. Kane, Colonial Massachusetts Silversmiths and Goldsmiths, p 539). Among Henchman's production, four other teapots are listed in Kane, out of more than seventy pieces of holloware and flatware.

John Wilkes, MP and Lord Mayor of London, was widely admired in the American Colonies as a political journalist, radical politician, and a fighter for liberty. He greatly influenced the revolutionaries who fought for American independence and played a role in establishing the right of freedom of men in the United States. Wilkes’s wild writings and multiple expulsions from English Parliament and the House of Commons throughout the 1760s and 70s made it so that names synonymous with the American Revolution displayed their support for his radical actions in private meetings and public spaces. In 1768, the Boston Sons of Liberty began their correspondence with him, with figures such as Thomas Young, Benjamin Church Jr., John Adams, Joseph Warren, Samuel Adams, Richard Dana, and Josiah Quincey Jr. writing to him for help with their cause.¹

Within the next few years, prints and engravings of Wilkes’s memorable profile circulated among the American public. These engravings and his name showed up on many pieces of Chinese Export porcelain, including a collection of punch bowls titled “Wilkes and Liberty” or “The Arms of Liberty.” In England, silver “picture-back” teaspoons were made to mark Wilkes’s release from prison. The back of the bowls showed a dove flying out of an open cage below the words “ L love Liberty.”² In addition to its commemoration of John Wilkes with an engraving of his profile, the present piece features the initials and family coat of arms of one of Wilkes’s political admirers John Gardner, listed as a Son of Liberty by William Palfrey in 1769, in "An Alphabetical list of the Sons of Liberty who dined at the Liberty Tree Dorchester on August 14, 1769." Today, there are two sculptures of Wilkes, one standing in London and the other on the campus of Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, appropriately reflecting his legendary status on either side of the Atlantic.

1) Maier, Pauline. “John Wilkes and American Disillusionment with Britain.” The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 3, 1963, pp. 373–95. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1918953.

2) Howard, David and John Ayers. China for the West: Chinese Porcelain & other Decorative Arts for Export illustrated from the Mottahedeh Collection, pp.244-45. Sotheby's Park Bernet Publications, 1978.