Creampot

Benjamin Burt

1763 · Silver · The American Wing

This charming creampot with elongated scalloped lip and vigorous scrolled handle resembles numerous examples of the form dating from the middle decades of the eighteenth century. Its three cast, pad feet convey a subtle suggestion of movement. This particular example is beautifully engraved with the arms of Brown for the Providence, Rhode Island, merchant Moses Brown (1738–1836) and his wife Anna (1744–1773), set within an elegant asymmetrical cartouche, and clearly the work of an experienced engraver. Surviving correspondence between Moses Brown and the silversmith Benjamin Burt, documents that the engraving was executed by Nathaniel Hurd, another Boston silversmith best known as an engraver, to whom Burt outsourced the engraving. Prior to her January 1764 wedding, Anna had received a munificent bequest from her father, Obadiah Brown (also Moses’s uncle), which enabled her to purchase a handsome array of wedding silver, including this creampot.

Artist

Benjamin Burt

Date

1763

Medium

Silver

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Bequest of Alphonso T. Clearwater, 1933