Bowl

This early American silver presentation bowl, probably intended as a punch bowl, commemorates a daring naval victory that occurred on June 4, 1748, when a privateer called the Royal Catherine, guarding the colonial coastline against French incursion, successfully overcame a French privateer called Le Mars off the coast of Sandy Hook. This celebrated event won wide acclaim, and its captain and lieutenant were duly honored. According to the New-York Gazette, or Weekly Post-Boy of June 13th, "immediately upon Capt. Burges’s Arrival here [New York City], the principal Merchants of this City set on Foot a Subscription for two Pieces of Plate, to be presented to him and his Lieutenant, as an Acknowledgment of the signal Service done." For his courageous efforts, Captain Burgess was also awarded the freedom of the City.



The location of Burgess’s own bowl is unknown today, but the second "piece of plate," presented to Lieutenant John Bill, survives here. It is marked four times on its underside by the New York silversmith George Ridout, who possibly trained in London, entering his mark at Goldsmiths’ Hall in 1743. By February 1745/46 he was living and working in New York City, where he received a number of prestigious commissions, such as an alms basin presented to Trinity Church in 1747. He also supplied domestic plate to such distinguished New York families as the Livingstons.