Sugar Bowl Maker: Simeon Soumaine (American, born England, baptized 1685–ca. 1750)

1738–45

American Decorative Arts

On view, 1st floor, American Decorative Arts before 1900

Tea drinking in the eighteenth-century demanded elaborate equipment, including sugar bowls like this one with its distinctive cover modeled after a Chinese porcelain covered rice bowl. The work of Huguenot silversmith Simeon Soumain, this Queen Anne–style vessel indicates a wealthy owner who spent large sums on luxury objects for the tea table. The bowl relies primarily on its perfectly round form for its aesthetic impact. The engraved cipher is for Elizabeth Harris (died 1760), who married Henry Cruger in Legnaum, Jamaica, in 1736. According to Cruger's diary, he and his family arrived in New York from Jamaica on May 31, 1738.

Medium

Silver

Dimensions

H. 4 3/16 × Diam. 4 11/16 in. (10.64 × 11.9 cm), 9 oz., 6 dwt. (289 g)
other (Lip): 4 11/16 in. (11.9 cm)
base: 2 in. (5.1 cm)

Credit Line

Mabel Brady Garvan Collection

Accession Number

1930.1056

Geography

Made in New York, New York

Culture

American

Period

18th century

Classification

Containers

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
Originally owned by Elizabeth (Harris) Cruger (d. 1760); Luke V. Lockwood, Greenwich, Conn.; Francis P. Garvan, New York, NY (1929).
Bibliography
  • Dean F. Failey, Deborah Dependahl Waters, and David L. Barquist, Elias Pelletreau: Long Island Silversmith and Entrepreneur 1726–1810, ed. Jennifer L. Anderson, exh. cat. (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Preservation Long Island, 2018), 17, 135, 140, fig. 5-3
  • Tessa Murdoch, ed., Beyond the Border Huguenot Goldsmiths in Northern Europe and North America (Eastbourne, England and Portland, Ore.: Sussex Academic Press, 2008), 63–64,, pl. 35, ill
  • Helen A. Cooper et al., Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: American Art from the Yale University Art Gallery, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2008), 34, no. 6, ill
  • Timothy Barringer, Gillian Forrester, and Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz, Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Center for British Art, 2007), 274, fig. 8
  • David L. Barquist, Myer Myers: Jewish Silversmith in Colonial New York, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2001), 4, fig. 2
  • Handbook of the Collections, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1992), 103, ill
  • Harold Newman, An Illustrated Dictionary of Silverware (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1987), 307, ill
  • Barbara M. Ward and Gerald W. R. Ward, eds., Silver in American Life: Selections from the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1979), 41, 147, no. 154, ill
  • Charles F. Montgomery and Patricia E. Kane, eds., American Art: 1750–1800 Towards Independence, exh. cat. (Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1976), 186, fig. 139
  • Graham Hood, American Silver: A History of Style, 1650–1900 (New York: Praeger, 1971), 103–5, fig. 93
  • Martha Gandy Fales, Early American Silver for the Cautious Collector (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1970), 19, fig. 18
  • Kathryn C. Buhler and Graham Hood, American Silver in the Yale University Art Gallery, 2 vols. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1970), vol. 2, p. 56, no. 603, ill
  • John Marshall Phillips, Early American Silver Selected from the Mabel Garvan Collection, Yale University (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1960), no. 17, ill
  • Kathryn C. Buhler, French, English, and American Silver, exh. cat. (Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1956), 78, no. 283
  • John Marshall Phillips, "The Mabel Brady Garvan Collection of Silver at Yale University," Connoisseur Year Book (1953), 73, pl. 13, ill
  • John Marshall Phillips, "Masterpieces in American Silver in Public Collections: Part II, 1700–1750," Antiques 55, no. 2 (February 1949), 120, ill
  • Stephen G. C. Ensko, American Silversmiths and Their Marks, 1 (New York: Ensko, Inc., 1948), pl. 9, ill
  • V. Isabelle Miller, Silver by New York Makers, Late 17th Century to 1900, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of the City of New York, 1937), 29, no. 284
  • Clara Louise Avery, An Exhibition of Early New York Silver, exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1931), fig. 67
  • Clara Louise Avery, Early American Silver (New York: The Century Co., 1930), 216, 329, pl. 58, ill
  • Exhibition of Early American Paintings, Miniatures, and Silver, assembled by Washington Loan Exhibition Committee, exh. cat. (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1925), 91, no. 176
  • R. T. Haines Halsey, Catalogue of an Exhibition of Silver Used in New York, New Jersey, and the South, exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1911), 49–50, no. 104
  • Dennis Andrew Carr, "Asian Encounters: The Flowering of Globalism in the Arts of the Colonial Americas at the MFA, Boston," The Magazine Antiques 182, no. 5 (September/October 2015),
Object copyright
No Copyright - United States
Additional information

Object/Work type

sugar bowls, utilitarian objects

Marks

"SS" in rectangle on bottom and on top inside handle

Inscriptions

"EC" cypher, within double-lined circle, engraved on side of bowl and on cover; "EC" on bottom.

Technical metadata and APIs

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