Provenance

Mary Murdoch Wells (1804–1877), East Hartford, Conn., supposedly owned by her great-grandfather and descended in the family [note 1]; given to a Mrs. Taft, Connecticut or Massachusetts, by 1877; sold to Irving W. Lyon (1840–1896), Hartford, Conn., 1877; bequeathed to Irving P. Lyon (1870–1944), Buffalo, 1896; sold to Francis P. Garvan (1875–1937), New York, 1929; given to Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., 1931

Note 1: Mary Wells' mother was a Taft and "Mrs. Taft" may have been a relative. Mrs. Taft reported that the mug "was brought from England by Miss Wells' great-grandfather." All four of Wells' great-grandparents were born in the Colonies, and died during the second half of the eighteenth century. Although Lyons believed the mug "to be 125 years old in the year 1877," it was made in the early nineteenth century. If this mug was indeed a family heirloom, it belonged to a subsequent generation of the family and the received history is incorrect (Lyon card #240, departmental files, YUAG).