Images(13)

"Madison" Horse Racing Trophy

Dateca. 1811

Marked by Johnson & Reat (1804 - 1815)

OriginAmerica, Virginia, Richmond

MediumSilver alloy

DimensionsHeight: 13 1/4"; Swell of body: 6 1/4" x 4 3/4"; Lip to handle: 10 1/4"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, The Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections Fund, The Joseph H. and June S. Hennage Fund, Mark S. Farnsworth, and Partial Gift of the Family of Randolph Madison, Jr.

Object number2023-13

DescriptionSilver trophy pitcher similar in form to a cream pot, but in a grand scale. Tall helmet-shaped body of swollen rectangular section with a convex band and a milled one of an undulating grape vine, both at the junction with the neck. One side bears an engraved inscription while the other carries an engraved racecourse scene, replete with an American flag, centered around a cast applique of two galloping horses and their jockeys, running neck and neck. Set atop a stepped rectangular foot bottomed with a strip of the same milled banding, to which it is joined by a very narrow neck.

Its high, everted pouring lip is edged with an applied gadrooned band that terminates in an even higher horse's head crest. Of hollow repoussé construction, the details of the horsehead are applied, chased, and engraved. Cast "S" scroll handle topped with an acanthus scroll ending in a flower. Two leaves grow up the lower portion of the handle, which terminates in a flower with a scrolled projection.
Label TextWon in an October, 1810 race by a horse named Madison, this silver pitcher stands tall as the earliest known Virginia-made racing trophy. Likely named after James Madison, the sitting President of the United States, the winner was one of the prize racehorses in the stable of Burwell Bassett Wilkes (1757-1815) of Brunswick County, Virginia. Wilkes, a Revolutionary War veteran, turned to farming and breeding horses at his plantation dubbed "Charlie's Hope," in the succeeding decades.

Between 1805 and early 1815, Tidewater area newspapers are filled with accounts of the races Wilkes' horses ran, winning some and losing others. Madison's victory was certainly his greatest equestrian triumph, achieved at the racecourse at New-Market in Petersburg and worth a $400 cash prize. In an era before ready-made trophies were awarded at the finish line, Wilkes had his stakes converted into this monumental and unparalleled piece of early Virginia silver hollowware.

Being "low and weak of body," Wilkes composed his estate plan in late 1814, and passed away on the last day of March the following year at the age of fifty-seven. Described in his will as "a silver Cupp won by madison," the trophy went to his daughter Mary "Polly" Wilkes, who saw fit to scratch variations of her initials into the underside of the foot. It seems the formal inscription was added years later and included the erroneous date "Spring, 1811." The Madison Trophy descended through five more generations of the family before coming to Colonial Williamsburg, having been owned in Virginia since it was made.
InscribedEngraved in six lines on side in mixed block and script:

"RUNNING RACE / Won by Madison - Owned by Burwell Wilkes / Brunswick Co., Virginia / at New Market Race Course / Petersburg, Va. / Spring, 1811"

Inside of foot scratched with the initials of Mary Burwell Wilkes; "MW," MBW" twice in block, and "MBW" in script.
MarkingsMarked in relief inside foot "Johnson & Reat" in a stepped rectangle (Hollan, Virginia Silversmiths, marks f and g, pp. 410 and 412.
ProvenanceDescended in the family of Burwell Bassett Wilkes, Sr. (1757-1815) of Brunswick, Virginia. By bequest to Wilkes' daughter Mary "Polly" Wilkes Drummond (1799-1865), as per his will proved on December 12, 1814. Then, apparently, to her brother Burwell Bassett Wilkes, Jr. (1805-1878), and thence to his daughter Lucy Edmonds Wilkes Madison (1949-1907), to her son Randolph Madison, Sr. (1885-1967), to his son Randolph Madison, Jr. (1918-2020), to his two daughters, the donors.