Important Americana: Silver, Chinese Export, and Prints
Important Americana: Silver, Chinese Export, and Prints
An American Silver Tankard, Elias Pelletreau, Southampton, Long Island, circa 1750-60
Lot Closed
January 22, 06:02 PM GMT
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
An American Silver Tankard, Elias Pelletreau, Southampton, Long Island, circa 1750-60
tapered cylindrical with molded foot rim, flat-domed cover engraved with contemporary interlaced cypher C S V in running leaf circle surrounded by later initials, with shaped front and lobate scroll thumbpiece, the handle applied with a long multiple drop, the cartouche-shaped terminal applied with a large full-face mask
marked EP near rim on both sides of the handleand with scratch weight
27 oz 15 dwt
788.7 g
height 6 3/4 in.
17.4 cm
The later initials and name surrounding the original cypher are as follows SEW, OMV, HJM and EW & E & M Mott.
According to research conducted by scholar Deborah Dependahl Waters, Ph.D., the “V” in the cypher is likely that of a member of the Valentine family, present in America from 1644. The later initials “H.J.M” are likely those of physician Dr. Henry Mott (1756-1839) and his wife Jane Way Mott (1761-1834), who was the daughter of Samuel Way and Esther Valentine. The initials J.E.W. are probably S.E.W for Samuel and Esther Way. The initials “E.W. & E & M. Mott” are likely those of the Mott’s daughters—Esther W. Mott (1789-1854), Eliza Mott (1792-1866), and Maria Mott Hobby (1796-1877). Their more famous brother was Dr. Valentine Mott (1785-1865), born in Glen Cove, Long Island, who became a well-known New York City surgeon and medical educator.
For more about the Valentine and Mott families, see:
T.W. Valentine, The Valentines in America 1644-1874. New York: Clark & Maynard, 1874, p. 39.
Edward Doubleday Harris, The Descendants of Adam Mott, of Hempstead, Long Island, N.Y. A Genealogical Study. Rev. ed. Lancaster, Pa: The New Era Printing Co., 1906, p. 6.
Find A Grave Memorial ID 5059, for Dr. Valentine Mott (accessed 1/15/2021).
This is an early tankard by Pelletreau following models by his master Simeon Soumaine, to whom he was apprenticed in 1741. It shares the same base band, shaped front to cover and the long drop on the handle with the Pelletreau Smith tankard at Preservation Long Island, illustrated Dean F. Failey et al, Elias Pelletreau, Long Island Silversmith and Entrepreneur, 1726-1810, pp.46-47. The mask on the base of the handle is found with shorter hair on a Soumaine tankard in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, see Beth Carver Weiss, Early American Silver in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, no 12, pp.50-51. A more precise version is on a tankard by Bartholomew Schaats also in The Metropolitan Museum, illus. op. cit. p.277.