General Lafayette’s visit to the United States in 1824 was a cause for huge celebration, sparking the manufacture of all kinds of commemorative souvenirs: dinner sets, watch ribbons, belt buckles, and even ladies’ gloves with buttons that bore his portrait. The image on this platter shows Lafayette’s arrival at Castle Garden aboard the steamship Chancellor Livingston. The ship was escorted by the Robert Fulton while six cannons fired a salute from the shore.

The source of the view is a copper-plate print drawn and engraved by Samuel Maverick, a member of a dynasty of New York engravers. The manufacturer has very faithfully copied the original design, merely changing the shape and positioning of the clouds to fit the more elongated surface of the platter. Maverick’s circular composition appears to have been originally intended to decorate a commemorative snuffbox. Maverick’s father, Peter Rushton Maverick, famously engraved gold presentation snuffboxes, one of which is in Yale’s collection, inv. no. 1930.1100. Maverick’s engraving was later pirated by another artist and made into a snuffbox, while amateur oil painters also produced works based on Maverick’s design.