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Patch Box
1712silver
1 1/16 in. x 1 3/4 in. x 1 3/4 in. (2.7 cm x 4.45 cm x 4.45 cm)
Currier Funds, 1948.7
William Cowell Sr.
American
1682–1736
The patch box is one of the earliest silver forms associated with personal adornment and beauty. Its purpose was to store little wax patches used to cover the blemishes and scars that were common in an age ravaged by smallpox. As a quirk of fashion, men and especially women adopted the patch as a fashion statement. The custom gained widest acceptance among the young and became part of the ritual of courting. The practice of patching was satirized by seventeenth-and early eighteenth-century writers, further testimony to the importance of this peculiar custom.
Patch boxes were an ostentatious luxury, and most owners were affluent and probably urbanites. Although small, the form is complicated and often engraved. This example is decorated with a delicately hatched border around a stylized sunflower.
The box bears the mark of William Cowell, one of Boston's most successful early eighteenth-century silversmiths. Cowell probably trained under Jeremiah Dummer (1645-1718), the first native-born American silversmith. Cowell's wife, Hannah Hurd Cowell, was the aunt of Jacob Hurd (q.v.), one of Boston's most illustrious silversmiths. At the time of Cowell's death in 1736, Hurd was brought in to appraise his estate. His tools were valued at a hefty one hundred and forty-five pounds sterling, not including almost three hundred pounds worth of silver stock and finished work in use by his family. Cowell was patronized by churches in Boston and as far away as the Connecticut River valley. He was an innkeeper as well as a silversmith and a wealthy and respected member of Boston society.
The exact dates and personal history of Hannah Bray, the first owner of the box, are not known. The Brays were among the first European settlers in New England, arriving on the Mayflower in 1620. Major John Bray was a Boston selectman and an officer of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, and thus a man of rank and reputation.
This patch box was exhibited at the first American exhibition at the first American exhibition of early silver, held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1906.
WNH and KB
REFERENCE
Kathryn C. Buhler and Graham Hood. American Silver: Garvan and Other Collections in the Yale University Art Gallery. 2 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970. Vol. 1, pp. 83-87.
Patch boxes were an ostentatious luxury, and most owners were affluent and probably urbanites. Although small, the form is complicated and often engraved. This example is decorated with a delicately hatched border around a stylized sunflower.
The box bears the mark of William Cowell, one of Boston's most successful early eighteenth-century silversmiths. Cowell probably trained under Jeremiah Dummer (1645-1718), the first native-born American silversmith. Cowell's wife, Hannah Hurd Cowell, was the aunt of Jacob Hurd (q.v.), one of Boston's most illustrious silversmiths. At the time of Cowell's death in 1736, Hurd was brought in to appraise his estate. His tools were valued at a hefty one hundred and forty-five pounds sterling, not including almost three hundred pounds worth of silver stock and finished work in use by his family. Cowell was patronized by churches in Boston and as far away as the Connecticut River valley. He was an innkeeper as well as a silversmith and a wealthy and respected member of Boston society.
The exact dates and personal history of Hannah Bray, the first owner of the box, are not known. The Brays were among the first European settlers in New England, arriving on the Mayflower in 1620. Major John Bray was a Boston selectman and an officer of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, and thus a man of rank and reputation.
This patch box was exhibited at the first American exhibition at the first American exhibition of early silver, held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1906.
WNH and KB
REFERENCE
Kathryn C. Buhler and Graham Hood. American Silver: Garvan and Other Collections in the Yale University Art Gallery. 2 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970. Vol. 1, pp. 83-87.
Exhibition
1906 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, "An Exhibition of American Silver." June 15 - Dec. 1. 1965 Rhode Island School of Design Musuem of Art, Providence, RI, "The New England Silversmith." Oct. 22 - Nov. 28.
1995-1997 "American Art from the Currier Gallery of Art." Organized by the Currier Gallery of Art and the American Federation of Arts. Traveled to: Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL, Dec. 3, 1995 - Jan. 28, 1996; Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, FL, Mar. 15 - Apr. 7, 1996; Art Museum of Western Virginia, Roanoke, VA, Aug. 10 - Oct. 13, 1996; The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, TN, Feb. 2 - Mar. 30, 1997; Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA, Apr. 25 - June 22, 1997; Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, July 18 - Sept. 8, 1997, cat. no. 53.
Provenance
Hannah Bray George C. Gebelein
Purchased by Currier Gallery of Art, 1948
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