Covered Caudle Cup Maker: John Coney (American, 1655–1722)

ca. 1679–85

American Decorative Arts

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

This cup was presumably purchased by Isaac Addington from a legacy of twenty pounds left to him in 1679 by his uncle, Governor John Leverett. It is the earliest American covered cup known and the only known example made in New England, although numerous uncovered caudle cups survive (including an example by Jeremiah Dummer; see 1930.1215). The cup was made while John Coney was still young and reveals his assurance in working silver.

Medium

Silver

Dimensions

6 11/16 × 9 1/4 × 5 in. (17 × 23.5 × 12.7 cm, 978 g)
other (Lip): 5 in. (12.7 cm)
base: 4 1/2 in. (11.4 cm)

Credit Line

Mabel Brady Garvan Collection

Accession Number

1932.46a-b

Geography

Made in Boston, Massachusetts

Culture

American

Period

17th 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
Issac Addington (1645-1715); his stepdaughter, Elizabeth Wainwright Davenport (d. 1756); her daughter, Elizabeth Davenport Dudley (1704-49); her daughter, Lucy Tufts Hall; her son, Dudley Hall (1780-1863); his daughter Hepzibah Hall Bradlee (b. 1821); her son, Dudley Hall Bradlee (1848-1912); his wife, Elizabeth Hall Bradlee; Francis P. Garvan, New York; gift in 1932 to Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.
Bibliography

  • Edward S. Cooke, Jr., Inventing Boston: Design, Production, and Consumption (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2019), 162, fig. 187.
  • Patricia E. Kane, Colonial Massachusetts Silversmiths and Jewelers (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1998), 323.
  • Handbook of the Collections, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1992), 100, ill.
  • Harold Newman, An Illustrated Dictionary of Silverware (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1987), 64, 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), 39, 129, no. 135, ill.
  • Graham Hood, American Silver: A History of Style, 1650–1900 (New York: Praeger, 1971), 27, 29, fig. 6.
  • Martha Gandy Fales, Early American Silver for the Cautious Collector (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1970), 42, fig. 38.
  • 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. 29, no. 22, ill.
  • John Marshall Phillips, "The Mabel Brady Garvan Collection of Silver at Yale University," Connoisseur Year Book (1953): 68–69, pl. 4.
  • Stephen G. C. Ensko, American Silversmiths and Their Marks, 3 (New York: Ensko, Inc., 1948), 13, ill.
  • John Marshall Phillips, "Masterpieces in American Silver; Part I, Seventeenth-Century Traditions," Antiques vol. 54, no. 6 (December 1948): 414, ill.
  • 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), 27, no. 36, fig. 6.
  • Harvard Tercentenary Exhibition, exh. cat. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1936), 26, no. 94.
  • John Marshall Phillips, "Six Two-Handled Covered Cups," Bulletin of the Associates in Fine Arts at Yale University 7, no. 2 (June 1936): 23–24, ill.
  • Exhibition of Silversmithing by John Coney, exh. cat. (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1932), no. 19.
  • Clara Louise Avery, Early American Silver (New York: The Century Co., 1930), 294.
  • Francis H. Bigelow, Historic Silver of the Colonies and Its Makers (New York: MacMillan Company, 1917), 112–113, fig. 48.
  • 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), 29, no. 247, pls. 7, 23, ill.

Object copyright
No Copyright - United States
Additional information

Object/Work type

caudle cups

Marks

"IC", hollow pellet between and fleur-de-lis below, in shaped shield (twice on lip of cover, once on side of body, opposite arms, twice on bottom)

Technical metadata and APIs

IIIF

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