Tankard

According to the donor, this tankard descended in the Winthrop family of Massachusetts, in the line established by John Winthrop (1588 – 1649), first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. If so, the family crest was probably engraved about the time the tankard was made, when such devices were popular. The Gothic letter W, presumably for Winthrop, was probably added sometime in the mid- to late nineteenth century. The sprigged script initials “TSB” or “TLB” have yet to be explained; also unknown is how the work of a Long Island silversmith found its way into a Massachusetts family with no evident ties to that region. The Winthrop family ownership can be supported only by the fact that the population of eastern Long Island was of English stock, much of it by way of New England.

Dating the tankard sylistically is hampered by Pelletreau’s preference for making silver in a generally conservative style to suit his Long Island patrons. The majority of his known tankards had flat-topped lids; domed examples are noted only four times in his meticulously maintained account books. Therefore, this example was conceivably made between 1760 and 1798, the years during which he recorded orders for such forms.

A possible aid in dating the tankard is found in the scratch price of $37. Written in an eighteenth-century hand contemporaneous with that of the scratch weight, the inscription could be interpreted as an indication that the tankard was fashioned sometime after 1792, the year in which the Coinage Act established the dollar as a standard monetary unit, although that date seems late.

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.