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Dimensions: height 3 3/8 in.

8.5 cm

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Weight: 11 oz 15 dwt

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Exhibited: Philadelphia 1956: The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia Silver, 1682-1800. April 14-May 27, 1956, no. 380
Boston 1956: The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Colonial Silversmiths: Masters & Apprentices, 1956, no. 312, p. 94

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Literature: Fales 1974, fig. 52, pp. 93-94

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Notes: Martha Gandy Fales equates this sugar bowl and cover with one purchased by Samuel Emlen in 1747 for £1/10/0. However, she lists the weight of the offered bowl and cover as being the same as that listed in the entry, 12oz 10dwt 12gr, where as in fact the scratch weight reads 12 oz 0dwt 12gr, ten pennyweights less than the weight she lists for Emlen's bowl.

The initials E M also appear on a porringer by Richardson, Sr. linked with Evan Morgan, who purchased two porringers from the silversmith in 1747 (Fales 1974 fig. 98, p. 120); Morgan submitted the silver for these pieces.

Three other octagonal sugar bowls and covers by Richardson, Sr. are known. The earliest is one that was made in 1736 for Oswald and Lydia Peel (Fales 1974 pl. 93a, p. 93, collection of Paul Cahn). Weighing 11oz 9 dwt when delivered, it cost £5 3s plus £2 5s for the making. Another, very similar to the Peel bowl and the offered example, is in a private collection. A later version of the form, with a higher domed cover and baluster finial, belonged to Margaret Wistar and is now at Wyck in Germantown (ibid. fig. 53, p. 94, and fig. 61, p. 97).

Octagonal forms were known in Philadelphia from at least 1724, when James Logan's London agent sent him an octagonal service with pieces by Benjamin Pyne, Peter Archambo, and John Farnell. This group has an octagonal sugar box, rather than a bowl, so the immediate model for Richardson's creations is not known.

For Joseph Richardson, Sr., see note to lot 650.