c. 1700

Tankard

American, 1671 - 1734

This tankard was made by Philadelphia silversmith Johannis Nys. The flat lid, cocoon-shaped thumbpiece, exuberantly shaped handle, masked terminus, cut-card decoration at the top of the base molding, and generally broad proportions are distinctively New York traits. This suggests that Nys completed his apprenticeship in New York and then brought the New York vernacular, which found its inspiration in Dutch work, to Philadelphia. The tankard bears the initials of Andrew Hamilton, Sr., an attorney general of Pennsylvania and a member of the colonial building committee whose design for the Pennsylvania state house was approved in 1732.