Four-piece tea service
Sugar bowl: 24.4 x 20 x 14.3 cm (9 5/8 x 7 7/8 x 5 5/8 in.)
Covered creampot: 22.2 x 13.5 x 11.4 cm (8 3/4 x 5 5/16 x 4 1/2 in.)
Waste bowl: 12 x 16 cm, 0.46 kg (4 3/4 x 6 5/16 in., 1.01 lb.)
This tea service was produced two years after William Gale Sr. made his son a partner in the firm, which became a popular source for hollowware such as this matching tea service. By midcentury the firm’s employees numbered seventy-five. Presented as a wedding gift, the service was decorated in the fashionable Rococo-revival style. William Gale & Son apparently copied its scheme of rusticated grapevines that serve to cover joints and form handles from the design of a teakettle on stand made in 1850 by Edward Moore. A stylish and costly service, elaborately repousséd and chased and marked by one of New York City’s best-known silversmiths, it served to indicate the high social expectations of the newlyweds.
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.
