Images(3)

Sugar box

Dateca. 1700

Marked by John Coney (1655/56 - 1722)

OriginAmerica, Massachusetts, Boston

MediumSilver alloy

DimensionsH: 4 1/2" OL: 7 1/4" OW: 6"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1961-38

DescriptionSilver sugar box with an oval body covered in relief chasing of four ovals each surrounded by curved flutes and gadroons and separated by an acanthus leaf above each of the four cast scroll legs with paw feet. Oval lid attached with a molded hinge in the back and a hinged, shaped clasp with a hole to fit on a projecting post to secure the lid. The stepped lid has an applied molded edge, two bands of chased gadroons, and is topped with a coiled snake to form the handle and finial.
Label TextOnly ten American sugar boxes are known, all of which were made in Boston in the shops of John Coney or Edward Winslow. They are among the most elaborate and sophisticated interpretations of the baroque style in early American silver. Patterned after English examples, sugar boxes served as stylish and showy displays of wealth. Sugar was a costly and prized commodity; prior to the widespread consumption of tea and coffee it was used primarily to sweeten alcoholic beverages. Superbly conceived and executed, this box gives ample evidence of Coney’s skill as a silversmith and the high level of the craft in the colonies.

Both in form and function, this sugar box with its coiled-snake handle is very unusual. Almost turtle-like in its shape, it is one of only ten known American examples. The box was originally intended to hold lumps of sugar, a rare and very expensive import used to sweeten wine in the period before tea and coffee became popular.
Inscribed"L/I:E" in block letters engraved on face of hasp (unidentified).
MarkingsMaker's mark "IC" in block letters with a fleur-de-lis below within a heart, once on the interior bottom and twice on the rim of the lid (Kane mark a.)

Exhibition(s)