A very rare American silver soup tureen and cover, Myer Myers, New York, circa 1765 with later restorations

bombé oval with stepped domed cover, raised on four scroll legs with shell feet and openwork shell headers, the side handles and top handle formed of leaf-capped scrolls rising from shells and joined by another

Possibly William Samuel Johnson
Probably Labberton (Holland von Hind Lappen), mid 19th c.
M.T. O'Shaughnessy, Hempstead, Long Island, sold
The Walpole Galleries, New York, #146 (April 7, 1920), lot 41
Parke-Bernet, New York, January 27, 1967, lot 35

This piece – while acknowledging its restorations - is the only known Colonial American soup tureen.

In April, 1767, Myer Myers sent an estimate for making a five-quart soup tureen to Sir William Johnson, general superintendent of Indian Affairs in North America.  The silversmith specified that such a tureen would cost if plain £53 15s., and if chased £67 10 s.[i]  The offered tureen has a five-quart capacity – considerably more than English tureens of the period – strengthening the possibility that it is the one made for Johnson.

Johnson was born in Ireland and emigrated to America about 1738 to manage his uncle’s lands along the Mohawk river, in the province of New York.  He became a merchant, trading with and gaining the trust of the Indians.  The conflicts with the French along the border led to Johnson gaining political and military appointments, acknowledging his ability to rouse the Indians for the British side; for his leadership during the French and Indian war he was made a baronet and given a grant of £5000.  He also acquired extensive land holdings, by his death almost 170,000 acres, making him with the Penn and van Rensselaer families among the biggest Colonial land owners,.  His seat of Johnson Hall was started in 1763, and it was presumably for this mansion that he consulted Myers about a silver tureen.

After Johnson’s death in 1774, his will left to his son Sir John Johnson most of his estate, including “all my plate”.  Johnson was a loyalist, and emigrated to Canada; his properties in New York were seized by the state legislature and auctioned.

What is presumably this piece next appears in a Long Island collection in the early 20^th century, sold in 1920, and again at Parke Bernet in 1967.  At this time the piece displayed additional mid-19^th century chased decoration.  The arms were identified as being those of Labberton, probably for Robert Henlopen Labberton, born in France to a prominent Dutch family, in 1853 professor of Greek at the University of Pennsylvania, and later a professor of history at Barnard College and author of a well-known historical atlas.  The piece was later restored to its Colonial appearance.

Silver soup tureens were extremely rare in early America, and would have represented the pinnacle of luxury for colonial grandees.  In 1761 Joseph Pinto of New York – probably a retailer – advertised “a very fine silver chased tureen”.  Further south, the estate inventory of Lord Botetourt at the Governor’s Palace in Virginia in 1770 included “1 Turin & Ladle”, which presumably he had brought with him from England in 1768.

This lack of models may explain the unusual proportions of Myers’ tureen, as well as perhaps the need to accommodate a full five quarts as Johnson had demanded.  The sophisticated multiple-scroll feet are perhaps unparalleled in Colonial silver, but the openwork petaled headers with beads between are very similar to the feet on Myers’ dish cross now at Yale (Barquist #92).  The shell motif that Myers has used to both center and base his handles is a more common casting in his work, probably most closely paralleled at the base of the handle on his covered jug for David Clarkson, Jr. (Barquist #27).

[i] Cited in Richard Day, Calendar of the Sir William Johnson Manuscripts in the New York State Library, Albany, 1909, p. 351, and Alexander C. Flick, The Papers of Sir William Johnson, vol. 5, Albany, 1927, p. 527; the actual manuscript was later destroyed in a fire.