Caster

Hollowware with panelled or faceted sides found special favor in the early eighteenth century among silversmiths who made casters and pepper pots. Complex in shape and execution, octagonal and hexagonal forms were also well suited to the hand, which may account for the preponderance of smaller objects made in this style.

John Coney produced a pair of hexagonal pear-shaped casters about 1710 – 20 for the Charnock family of Boston.

Kathryn C. Buhler believed that Hiller’s version of this form was informed by his apprenticeship or journeyman experience with Coney, as documented in a 1709 deed that Hiller witnessed for Coney. By this date, Hiller would have completed his apprenticeship or recently begun work as a journeyman. Coney also fashioned an octagonal pepper box, or spice dredger, during the same period.

A slightly smaller version of this caster by Hiller, bearing the same arms and initials, is in the Yale collection. The discovery of the Museum’s larger example indicates that the two were probably from an original set of three, few of which survive en suite.

This text has been adapted from "Silver of the Americas, 1600-2000," edited by Jeannine Falino and Gerald W.R. Ward, published in 2008 by the MFA. Complete references can be found in that publication.