American Silver Cann

Object Details

Object Essay

The body of this cann is the standard “bellied,” or tulip, shape, but it rests on a molded, stepped foot that is particularly broad and high. The double C-scroll handle is also unusually heavy, with a molded shell under its upper joint. This somewhat atypical expression of rococo design has only been seen on canns from New York—most notably on two by Myer Myers and on a pair of similar canns by John Moulinar.^{1_{Rosenbaum, 74–75; and Buhler and Hood, 93, 98. One of the Myers canns, at the Yale University Art Gallery, is covered.}}

The maker of this cann, Elias Pelletreau, was born in Southampton, Long Island, in 1726. His parents, Francis, a merchant, and Jane (Osborne) Pelletreau, were French Huguenots. Elias served his apprenticeship under another Huguenot, Simeon Soumaine, in New York City, between 1742 and 1748. He opened a shop on John Street soon after finishing his training and was made a freeman of the city in 1750. That year, he returned to Southampton, where he worked for most of his career. He was the leader of the local militia during the Revolution, but when Long Island was occupied by the British in 1776, he and his family fled to Simsbury, Connecticut, where they resided for the remainder of the war.^{2_{Brooklyn Museum, n.p.}} His years in Connecticut may well have influenced the style of his silver, for some of his work displays distinctive traits of New England designs.

Jennifer F. Goldsborough and Barbara McLean Ward

Excerpted from Clement E. Conger, et al. Treasures of State: Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1991.