Images(7)

Cream Pot

Dateca. 1775

Marked by Thomas You (ca. 1730 - 1786)

OriginAmerica, South Carolina, Charleston

MediumSilver

DimensionsOH: 4 5/16"; OW: 4 5/16"; OD: 2 9/16"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, The Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections Fund

Object number2015-145

DescriptionCream pot: Cast, stepped circular foot with edge finely crimped on upper surface to simulate gadrooning and bottom edge of foot with numerous file marks supports an inverted pear-shaped body with integral high wide everted pouring lip. The rim of lip/body finely crimped on inner edge to simulate gadrooning. Cast double-scrolled handle with scrolled thumb-grip and pointed oval juncture at upper rim. Plain lower juncture of handle, which terminates in a scroll with pendant drop.
Label TextThomas You worked at the Sign of the Golden Cup in Charleston from about 1756 until the 1780s. He regularly announced in the South-Carolina Gazette that he imported, made, repaired, and polished silver and jewelry. Punch and slop bowls, sugar dishes, pint mugs, strainers, ladles, spoons, pepper boxes, and salt-cellars are among the forms mentioned in his advertisements.

Silver made in the American South prior to the mid-19th century is rare, and pre-Revolutionary Southern silver is even scarcer. Although Thomas You was a prominent craftsman in Charleston for three decades, today only about three dozen objects bearing his mark are known. This circa 1775 cream pot joins a cann and a caster, all funded by the Friends of Collections, as examples of silver at Colonial Williamsburg by this important Southern craftsman.
InscribedEngraved on body under lip with the heraldic crest of a pelican in its piety over the sprigged script monogram "TG".
MarkingsDeeply struck in relief on body inside of footring with "T•Y" within an oval
ProvenancePurchased by S. J. Shrubsole of NYC at Sotheby's, New York, The Collection of Roy and Ruth Nutt: Highly Important American Silver, 24 January 2015, lot 548.
Acquired by Ruth Nutt from Jonathan Trace, Portsmouth, NH, May 1986.