Neoclassical Engraved Colorless Glass Wine Decanter and Stopper

Object Details

Object Essay

Daniel Sargent (1764–1842) of Massachusetts, grandson of Epes Sargent and son of Daniel Sargent (1731–1806), may have been the original owner of this decanter. Sargent began his mercantile career in Gloucester, Massachusetts, but moved to Boston by 1798, when he was elected First Captain of the Boston Light Infantry. A director of the Boston Bank, Sargent became president of the Marine Insurance Company in 1802, the year he married Mary Frazier, a Newburyport belle who had captured the heart of John Quincy Adams during his days as a law student.^{1_{Sargent, 134–40. According to Samuel Breck, Adams told him, “it took a long time to get cured of her” (ibid., 139–40, n. 2).}} Between 1805 and 1810, Sargent represented Boston in the state legislature, and from 1817 to 1822, he was the Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The Department of State’s decanter could have been blown at the Boston Crown Glass Company which, after a troubled beginning, began to produce glass in the fall of 1793. According to factory advertisements, “all sorts of hollow ware,” in addition to window panes, were produced by the largely German-trained work force.^{2_{Watkins, 288–91.}} These tablewares presumably would have been blown of a nonlead formula glass. It is more likely, however, that the decanter was one of the many thousands of glasswares made in Bohemia and Germany and exported to the United States after the Revolution.^{3_{Lanmon, 15–48.}} Because the style of decoration is not typical of this European export glass, however, the engraving must have been executed to order in Boston by an independent glass engraver trained in the Anglo-Irish tradition.^{4_{See, for example, Warren 1981, 192, figs. 219A and B; Bickerton, 291, no. 932; Schwind 1988, 6–10.}}

In the Corning Museum of Glass is a glass tumble made in 1817 for Daniel’s brother, Ignatius Sargent (1765–1821). Decorated with diamond-point engraving, the tumbler celebrates the ship Thomas, which the brothers owned together.^{5_{Spillman, 4–5, figs. 6–7.}}

Office of the Curator

Excerpted from Clement E. Conger, et al. Treasures of State: Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1991.