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Sugar Bowl with Lid
Accession # 52.154a-b
Maker Myer Myers
Title Sugar Bowl with Lid
Date ca. 1770-1795
Medium Silver
Dimensions 9 1/4 x 4 1/2 in. (23.5 x 11.4 cm) weight (approximately): 390.87 grams (weighed by BMA conservation, plus or minus .10)
Marks Myers (in script on rim of cover and bottom of urn)
Credit Line Gift of Stephen Ensko
Location American Identities: Colony to Nation / Inventing American Landscape
Description Oviform on square base. Cover has urn finial. Beaded border around top and bottom of cover, and foot of main part. HAs the Goelet family crest (a swan) on the front. New York. Condition: good

Curatorial Remarks: During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, sugar from large plantations worked by enslaved Africans in Barbados and Jamaica was one of the most lucrative commodities for British merchants and landowners.

Myer Myers, the owner of the silver workshop in New York City where this covered sugar bowl was created, was the only Jewish silversmith in the city. Interpreting European forms in functional wares, he also supplied the city’s synagogues with ritual silver. During the eighteenth century, although there was a small community of American Sephardic Jews living in New York and Newport, prejudice against non-Christian beliefs was strong throughout the colonies.