American Silver Porringer

Object Details

Object Essay

Historian Anthony N. B. Garvan has suggested that porringers were important symbolic gifts given to children and couples as wedding gifts. In addition, porringer handle designs may have carried iconographic significance for their recipients.^{1_{Garvan 1959, 543–52.}} In England, the porringer form, often called a bleeding bowl, was never made in large numbers and went out of style by the first decade of the 18th century. Americans, however, attached symbolic significance to the form and continued to make porringers throughout the 18th century. As with the tankard, another particularly popular form in America, colonial silversmiths produced their own distinctive stylistic variations on the form. In the case of the porringer, this creative elaboration was confined to the handle, and several distinctive patterns were produced. The handle design on this particular object, known as a crown handle, was popular in Boston in the 1720s and 1730s.^{2_{For two other examples by Boston silversmiths, see Ward and Ward 1979, 68.}} Its maker, Thomas Edwards, was probably trained in the shop of his father, John Edwards (1671–1746). After finishing his apprenticeship, Edwards worked independently in Boston and then briefly in New York before returning to his native Boston. In 1746, he inherited his father’s shop and many of his tools, the remainder going to his brother, Samuel (1705–1762), who was also a silversmith. One court document reveals that Thomas Edwards jobbed out work to other silversmiths. Thomas Townsend, according to the bill filed with the court, made tankard bodies and pieces of hollowware which were then assembled and retailed by Edwards. Like his father’s silver, extant work by Thomas Edwards is essentially simple, but often elaborates existing designs.^{3_{Ward 1989, 66–76; Ward 1983, 64–91, 119–120, 153–54, 183–84.}}

Thomas Edwards devoted most of his energy to his business activities. He became a member of the Military Company in 1724 and served in several offices, becoming Captain of the Company in 1753. He held the influential and controversial office of Clerk of the Market in 1729 and again in 1747. He amassed a sizable fortune in the silversmithing trade and was one of the three most successful silversmiths of his generation. Edwards is known to have trained at least two men, Thomas Coverly (1708–1778) and Zachariah Brigden (1734–1787). Brigden married Edwards’s daughter, Sarah and inherited many of his father-in-law’s tools.^{4_{Roberts, 1: 416; Buhler 1972, 1: 171. In 1727, when he was nineteen years old, Thomas Coverly witnessed two deeds for Edwards (Suffolk County Deeds, 41: 176–77, 205–6, Suffolk County, Massachusetts Registry of Deeds, Suffolk County Courthouse, Boston, Massachusetts).}}

Barbara McLean Ward

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.