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 these pieces 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. Of all the pieces in the set, the vegetable bowl (c) includes the most elements of the original design (although the sky above the scene has been altered). The other pieces have a cropped version that fits their smaller surfaces. 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.