Americana

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Lot 111
  • 111

The Philip Withington Beaker: A rare American silver beaker, David Jesse, Boston, circa 1700

Estimate
60,000 - 90,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • marked DI pellet above and below in oval twice on base (Kane mark A)
  • Silver
  • height 4 1/4 in.
  • 10.8 cm
cylindrical with molded base band and flared rim, later engraved (mistakenly) The Gift of Mrs. Thatcher of Boston to the Church in Dorchester 1672, the underside with contemporary initials W/P*T

Provenance

Bequest of Philip Withington in 1734 to
The First Parish in Dorchester, Dorchester, MA

Exhibited

Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1911. American Church Silver of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, with a few pieces of Domestic Plate, no. 690, p. 82
Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, loan, 1938-2011

Literature

John Henry Buck, Old Plate, its Makers & Marks, 1903, p. 235.
E. Alfred Jones, The Old Silver of American Churches, 1913, p. 143-4.
Francis Hill Bigelow, Historic Silver of the Colonies and its Makers, 1917, p. 73.
Francis Hill Bigelow, "Early New England Silver, Early American Silver and Its Makers, September 1925, Fig. 8, p. 57.J

Catalogue Note

As previously noted the present lot was mastakenly engraved on the side with a presentation inscription naming "Mrs. Thatcher of Boston."  This inscription was likely intended for a two-handled cup donated by Mrs. Thatcher to the First Church of Dorchester, and later presented by the Church to the Second Church of Dorchester "as a token of good friendship" in the 19th century.  The initials on the base of this beaker W/P*T are those of the correct donors—Philip Withington (1659-1736) and his first wife Thankful Pond (1661-1711), daughter of William Pond and Mary Dyer. 

Philip Withington was born in Dorchester on 26 March 1659, the son of Richard Withington (1620-1701) and his wife Elizabeth Elion (d. 1714).  His brother Ebenezer Withington donated the two-handled cup (possibly contributing to the confusion with Mrs. Thatcher's cup) to be offered in this sale as lot 114.  Withington was a blacksmith who married Thankful Pond in Dorchester on 17 November 1682 in a ceremony conducted by silversmith John Hull, mintmaster of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and maker of the oldest surviving piece of American silver (Dorchester, Mass, Dorchester Births, Marriages, and Deaths to the End of 1825, 1890, p. 24).  He married secondly Sarah (d. 1746) sometime after  Thankful's death on Christmas Day, 1711.  Withington was admitted to the First Church of Dorchester on 18 June 1693, and specified in his will dated 31 December 1734 "And my biggest Silver Beaker cup wch I hereby give & bequeath to the Church in Dorchester for the service of the Lords table there forever."  Withington died in Dorchester at the age of seventy-five on 27 December 1736.

Patricia Kane lists eight pieces attributed to David Jesse, including the present and only beaker, a caudle cup, a cup, two porringers, two tankards and one tumbler.