Images(3)

Manuscript invoice, Peter Scott to Daniel Parke Custis, 9 June 1756

Date1754-1756

Artist/Maker Peter Scott

OriginAmerica, Virginia, Williamsburg

MediumInk on laid paper.

DimensionsOH: 3 1/8"; OW: 6 3/16"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1988-405

DescriptionManuscript invoice, Peter Scott to Daniel Parke Custis, 9 June 1756.

Label TextThe invoice documents Williamsburg cabinetmaker Scott's provision of furniture to New Kent County planter Custis. The work cancels rent due from Scott to Custis. Custis owned the buildings in which Scott worked (and possibly lived) on Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg.

One of the two dressing tables mentioned in the invoice survives in the collection at Mount Vernon. The table appears on the 1757 probate inventory of Custis's White House plantation in New Kent, the 1759 list of goods taken from White House to Mount Vernon when widow Martha Custis married George Washington, and the 1800 probate inventory of Mount Vernon taken after Washington's death. The table also appears in the 1834 John Gadsby Chapman painting of the Washingtons' bedchamber at Mount Vernon.
InscribedObverse:
"1754 Daniel Park Custis Dr
June 12 To 2 Mahogany Dressing tables........................£10..
Augt 3 To a box for papers pr Mr James Powers order.[0]..2..[0]
1755 Augt 5 To a Mahogany Screen table.................................1..5..
1756 June To Cash as ballance..............................................8..3..
£20..--..
Pd By 2 years Rent ending 1st of Janry 1746..........................£20..--..
Errors Excepted Pr Peter Scott [signed]
All Accounts Settled between Ptr Scott and Danl Parke Custis [signed] 9 June 1756"

Reverse:
"Scott Peter / D.P. Custis / Rect £20..--.."
MarkingsNone.
ProvenanceThe document is illustrated and offered for sale in the May 1937 issue of AMERICAN CLIPPER: MONTHLY CATALOGUE OF AMERICAN HISTORICAL AND LITERARY MATERIAL. [An original copy of the catalogue is in the Object File for 1988-405.] The invoice's whereabouts after 1937 are unknown until it was offered for sale to Colonial Williamsburg in 1988.

Although many of the Custis papers are at the Virginia Historical Society, this particular document apparently was never a part of that collection.