Sugar boxes, extremely rare objects in early American silver, were a particular specialty of the Boston silversmith John Coney. Arguably the most highly skilled of his peers, Coney is responsible for three of the nine examples known today. This sugar box is the largest of the three, but otherwise is identical in form and decoration. All extant sugar boxes were made by silversmiths in or near Boston, where there existed a unique fashion for the ornate containers.

Coney's early training remains a mystery. No records of an apprenticeship have been found, although Robert Sanderson (1609-1693) and John Hull (1624-1683) were both old enough to have been Coney's teachers, and Coney was later related to Sanderson through marriage. Coney's first known work was a caudle cup, made in 1676 when he was twenty-two and probably had just finished his apprenticeship. A talented engraver, Coney was responsible for creating the plates for printing the paper money of Massachusetts and the Harvard College seal. When he died in 1722, Coney was still silversmithing, as indicated by an extensive inventory of tools and stock.

There has been much speculation among scholars about the intended purpose of sugar boxes. Whether they were a glorified first generation of the covered sugar bowl or a fancy candy dish, it is agreed that they were meant to hold some form of sugar, then a luxury commodity available to only a small percentage of the colonial population. Little is known about the original owners of sugar boxes. One example by Coney was passed down through the female side of a Boston family, as fine pieces of silver often were. Several wealthy Boston Huguenot merchants, who made their fortunes in the lucrative rum and molasses trade with the West Indies, had both access to sugar and the means to afford such an expensive container. One, John Faneuil, owned a "turtle shell sugar box" when his estate was inventoried in 1748. The box appears in the list of the contents of Faneuil's farm in Roxbury, which was smaller, and more simply furnished than his mansion in Boston. The owner of a sugar box asserted a refined and privileged lifestyle by displaying rather than simply storing his sugar. The box was of course also functional, keeping the sugar clean and dry.

Every inch of the sugar box is decorated in a meticulous manner, characteristic of Coney's superior work. The lobed, chased body of the sugar box, set on cast scrolled feet, creates an undulating baroque surface that reflects light and is reminiscent of the applied busses found on court cupboards and chests made at the same time. A cast coiled serpent, executed in minute detail, forms the handle. Repoussé oak leaves form a wreath around the top of the box, which is ringed by more bulbous lobes. Wherever it was placed, the sugar box commanded attention.

This sugar box has a history of ownership by silversmiths. During the mid-nineteenth century it was acquired by the Boston silversmithing firm of Jones, Ball, and Poor, which placed its mark on the bottom. The mark has since been removed. Its ownership after that is not known, but in 1935, George C. and J. Herbert Gebelein, also Boston silversmiths, acquired the box. In 1955, Eunice Straw, the widow of H. Ellis Straw, a former Currier trustee who was instrumental in the museum's acquisition of several other fine pieces of colonial silver, made a gift of the sugar box to the Currier.

WNH and KB


REFERENCES

Inventory of James Bowdoin, March 1748, Suffolk County probate records,
Massachusetts State Archives, Boston Docket 8829.

"Currier Gallery Acquires an Important Silver Sugar Box by John Coney." Currier Gallery of Art, January 12, 1956 (press release).

Hermann Frederick Clarke. John Coney: Silversmith, 1655-1722. New York:
Da Capo Press, 1971.

David B. Warren, Katherine S. Howe, and Michael K. Brown. Marks of Achievement: Four Centuries of American Presentation Silver. Ex. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1987. Pp. 64-65.