Baptismal Basin Maker: John Burt (American, 1692–1745)

1726

American Decorative Arts

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

This baptismal basin was made for the First Parish Church in Charlestown, Massachusetts, by the Boston silversmith John Burt. It was funded by Henry Phillips (died 1729), and its dedicatory engraving records that Phillips presented it to the church on May 1, 1726.

Medium

Silver

Dimensions

3 1/16 × 12 5/8 in. (7.8 × 32.1 cm)

Credit Line

Mabel Brady Garvan Collection

Accession Number

1930.1293

Geography

Made in Boston, Massachusetts

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 Henry Phillips; First Parish Church, Charlestown, Mass.; I. Sack, Boston; Francis P. Garvan, New York (1926); gift in 1930 to Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.
Bibliography
  • Melanie B. Smallie, "Isle of Mystery and Promise," Letting Go: Living without a Net 11 (2004), IX–XII, ill
  • Patricia E. Kane, Colonial Massachusetts Silversmiths and Jewelers (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1998), 249
  • Handbook of the Collections, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1992), 103, ill
  • 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. 1, p. 97, no. 110, ill
  • Kathryn C. Buhler, French, English, and American Silver, exh. cat. (Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1956), 71, no. 183
  • John Marshall Phillips, Masterpieces of New England Silver, 1650–1800: An Exhibition Held June 18 through September 10, 1939, Gallery of Fine Arts, Yale University (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1939), 20–21, no. 17
  • E. Alfred Jones, The Old Silver of American Churches (Letchworth, England: National Society of Colonial Dames of America, 1913), 123–24, pl. 48, ill
  • George Munson Curtis and Florence Virginia Berger, American Church Silver of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, exh. cat. (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1911), 18, no. 153, pl.6, ill
Object copyright
No Copyright - United States
Additional information

Object/Work type

baptismal basins

Marks

"I: BURT" in cartouche in center of bowl

Inscriptions

"Hocce Lavacrum Ecclesiae Charlstonensi Nov-Anglia in Baptismi Usum dedicat Henricus Phillips 1 mo Maii.1726" engraved under lip

Technical metadata and APIs

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