Salver

1766–80

William Grigg
American, died 1797
New York

Salvers were normally small and used to support a tea or coffeepot on a table. The large size of this salver suggests it was used as a serving platter. The heavy ball-and-claw feet and the border, an alternating series of convex and concave elements known as gadrooning, were typical decorative treatments favored in New York at the end of the 18th century. The salver was originally commissioned by Matthew Clarkson (1758–1825).

Status: On View, Gallery 167
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: William Grigg
Title: Salver
Place: New York City (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: c. 1766–1780
Medium: Silver
Inscriptions: Marked on bottom, in rectangle: W. GRIGG Engraved on body: arms and crest of Clarkson family
Dimensions: 4.1 × 39.1 × 39.1 cm (1 5/8 × 15 3/8 × 15 3/8 in.)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by the Antiquarian Society through the Mr. and Mrs. Edwin A. Seipp Fund
Reference Number: 1951.41
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/74775/manifest.json

“The Editors’ Attic: An Unrecorded New York Silver Tray,” Antiques (August 1947) p. 127 (ill.).
H. Comstock, “The Connoisseur in America: A Discovery in New York Silver,” The Connoisseur 120, 506 (December, 1947), p. 113 (ill.).
The Antiquarian Society (Art Institute of Chicago, 1951) p. 40 (ill.).
A. Winchester, “Silver Footed Tray by William Grigg of New York and Albany,” Antiques 98, 3 (September, 1970) p. 393 (ill. frontispiece).
D.E. Ellesin ed., “Collectors’ Notes,” Antiques 105, 4 (October, 1973), p. 687 (ill.).
Ian Quimby, “American Silver at Winterthur,” (Winterthur: 1995) p. 244.
Judith A. Barter, Elizabeth McGoey, et al., American Silver in the Art Institute of Chicago (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), cat. 34 (ill.).
Elizabeth McGoey, ed., American Silver in the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2018), https://publications.artic.edu/americansilver/reader/collection/section/6, cat. 34 (ill.).

Art Institute of Chicago, The Antiquarian Society: The First One Hundred Years, Apr. 23–June 19, 1977, cat. 194 as Tray.

Probably Matthew Clarkson (1733-1772) or possibly David Matthew Clarkson (1758-1825), New York; by descent to Pauline Rives Clarkson Miller (1856-1932); given to her son Christopher Blackburn Miller (1885-1957), by 1947; sold, Miller Auction, Yonkers, NY, April 1947, to James Graham and Sons, New York; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1951.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.