Tankard

Paul Revere Jr.

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Mid-eighteenth-century Boston tankards tended to be tall and tapered, with domed covers and horizontal midbands. By the end of the century, when the vogue for these drinking vessels had begun to wane, they grew even taller, with a more exaggerated dome to the cover. This one is especially large. The script monogram "S E B" engraved on its front stands for Samuel and Elizabeth Bradley, who were married on September 2, 1784. It appears in Paul Revere's account book for the year 1795, where he lists a three-pint tankard under Bradley's name.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art