On View
Not on viewDishes
Date1790-1810
Terms
- Dishes
- Glass
- England
Dimensions7.61 × 12.69 × 7.61 cm (3 × 5 × 3 in.)
MarkingsLabel on bottom of Th60b: "Owned by H.D. Thoreau's Mother and Grandmother./ Given to Mrs. Arthur Ricketson./ Purchased by the Society, May 1917."
Credit LineMuseum Purchase (1917)
Object numberTH60A
DescriptionGlass; blown, cut, and engraved. Lead glass, bluish in color. Cut in a diamond diapered pattern with deeply scalloped edge. Pair of sweetmeat side dishes (Th60a,b).
The glassware may not have seen everyday use in the Thoreau household. The decanters (Th94, Th95) are English and date from about 1820; Jarvis said of glass decanters: "Comfortable families had decanters for spirits in their closets and on their sideboards, from which they served their company in tumblers or wine glasses." The Thoreaus; was an abolitionist household and while perhaps not strictly temperance they were commonly abstemious. The decanters are in very nearly perfect condition, suggesting they spent more time in the closet than on the table. The sweetmeats dishes (Th60a, Th60b), too, are a luxury item and seem to have come to the Thoreaus from a previous generation; like the decanters, they saw little use.
Only ten pieces of tableware survive from the much more extensive collection of plates, bowls, glasses, and flatware that Cynthia Thoreau would have used to furnish her table. The Thoreau household generally had one or more boarders in addition to the family of six. Prudence Ward and her daughter were boarders with the Thoreaus; Cynthia Thoreau's sister Louisa lived with them for more than thirty years. Some of John and Henry's students boarded when their school was in operation, and there were other short-term boarders as well. Dinners for ten or more must have been a regular occurrence.
Around the middle of the 19th century English potteries produced dinner services of transfer-printed earthenware in great quantity and regained a good part of the American market for common tablewares that they had lost to Chinese export ware around the time of the War of 1812. The Thoreaus may have had an English dinner or tea service as many of their neighbors did, but no pieces survive.
The glassware may not have seen everyday use in the Thoreau household. The decanters (Th94, Th95) are English and date from about 1820; Jarvis said of glass decanters: "Comfortable families had decanters for spirits in their closets and on their sideboards, from which they served their company in tumblers or wine glasses." The Thoreaus; was an abolitionist household and while perhaps not strictly temperance they were commonly abstemious. The decanters are in very nearly perfect condition, suggesting they spent more time in the closet than on the table. The sweetmeats dishes (Th60a, Th60b), too, are a luxury item and seem to have come to the Thoreaus from a previous generation; like the decanters, they saw little use.
Only ten pieces of tableware survive from the much more extensive collection of plates, bowls, glasses, and flatware that Cynthia Thoreau would have used to furnish her table. The Thoreau household generally had one or more boarders in addition to the family of six. Prudence Ward and her daughter were boarders with the Thoreaus; Cynthia Thoreau's sister Louisa lived with them for more than thirty years. Some of John and Henry's students boarded when their school was in operation, and there were other short-term boarders as well. Dinners for ten or more must have been a regular occurrence.
Around the middle of the 19th century English potteries produced dinner services of transfer-printed earthenware in great quantity and regained a good part of the American market for common tablewares that they had lost to Chinese export ware around the time of the War of 1812. The Thoreaus may have had an English dinner or tea service as many of their neighbors did, but no pieces survive.
Collections
- Henry David Thoreau Collection
