Important Americana

Important Americana

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 8. An American Silver Coffee Pot, Paul Revere II, Boston, 1770–75.

The Patriot: Three Important Silver Works by Paul Revere from a Private American Collection

An American Silver Coffee Pot, Paul Revere II, Boston, 1770–75

Estimate

500,000 - 700,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

double-bellied baluster form with stepped lid and pinecone and acanthus finial, gadroon borders, fluted S-scroll spout rising from a shell, matching upper terminal, engraved on one side with rococo cartouche with flower sprays and bellflowers enclosing monogram MSS, maker’s mark [pellet]Revere left of handle, also engraved with scratch weight oz 40 – 10.


42 oz gross

1306.3 g

height: 12 3/4 in.

32.4 cm

Micajah and Sibyl Sawyer, Newburyport

Descended in the family until sold

Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, April 30 – May 3, 1980, lot 184

Patricia E. Kane, Colonial Massachusetts Silversmiths and Jewelers, 1998, p. 812

Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1980s–2014

Dr. Micajah Sawyer (1737–1815) was a “celebrated physician of Newburyport.” He was the son of Enoch Sawyer and Sarah Pierpont of Newbury; graduating Harvard in 1756, he married in 1766 Sibyl Farnham, daughter of Daniel Farnham, lawyer of Newburyport and York County, Maine, and his wife Sibyl Angier. They had eight children, but only four lived to adulthood.


Their son William attended Dummer Academy, then graduated Harvard in 1788. After practicing medicine with his father, he became a very successful merchant and in 1816 bought 87 Mount Vernon St. in Boston, a Charles Bullfinch–designed townhouse that is now the headquarters of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts.