Samuel Kirk & Son
“Etruscan” Cream Pot
c. 1850
Physical Qualities
Silver, 5 1/2 × 3 7/8 × 5 1/2 in. (14 × 9.8 × 14 cm.)
Credit Line
Bequest of Georgiana Williamson in Memory of her Parents, David B. Williamson and Mary A. Butler Williamson
Object Number
1959.67
Samuel Kirk’s bold cream pot revives the sweeping curves, naturalistic patterns, and pastoral landscapes of mid-18th-century design. A bed of flowers decorates the neck, foot, and handle. Buildings, towers, and fields emerge from a forest around the body. This elaborate style, known as Rococo Revival, became synonymous with Baltimore silver of the mid-19th century. Kirk and his sons were masters at hammering these curvaceous silver forms. Affluent Americans across the United States collected their pieces.
Baltimore Museum of Art by bequest, 1959; Georgina Williamson (1865-1959) likely by descent; David (1831-1886, m. 1860) and Mary Butler Williamson (1837-1904) New York, NY by gift, 1860
Jennifer Faulds Goldsborough, "Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Maryland Silver in the Collection of The Baltimore Museum of Art." Baltimore: The Baltimore Museum of Art, 1975. p. 159, ill.
Inscribed: Engraved on side: monogram "MAB" [script], for Mary A. Butler (Williamson)
Markings: Struck on underside: "11 oz [in box] / S.KIRK & SON / 11 oz"
On View: American Wing Second Floor, Eltonhead Hallway/Case 2
