MARK OF UBALDO VITALI, MAPLEWOOD, NEW JERSEY, LATE 20TH CENTURY

The forms represented in this tea set are based on important colonial works made by three celebrated 18th century American silversmiths.  The globular body of the teapot was a silhouette employed a number of times by Boston silversmith Jacob Hurd in the 1730’s.  Examples of Hurd’s teapots made for the Storer and Henchmen families can be found in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (see Kathryn C. Buhler, American Silver 1655-1825 in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 1972, pp. 205-07, 218-21). The baluster-form milk pot with symmetrical scrolls flanking the supports is based on a model by New York silversmith Myer Myers in the 1750’s.  An example of this form of milk pot is illustrated in David L. Barquist, Myer Myers Jewish Silversmith in Colonial New York, 2001, fig. 5, p. 84.  Lastly, the covered sugar bowl with slightly flared lip and reel-shaped handle is reminiscent of a 1738-45 sugar bowl and cover by New York silversmith Simeon Soumain in the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection at the Yale University Art Gallery and illustrated Kathryn C. Buhler and Grahm Hood, American Silver Garvan and Other Collections in the Yale University Art Gallery, 1970, fig. 603, pp. 56-57.