Tankard

Philip Syng Jr.

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Characteristic of Syng’s surviving tankards are the tall domed cover, applied handle drop, and triangular-shaped handle terminal evident here. Although the initials, G over S * E, engraved on the handle are contemporary with the tankard’s date of manufacture, the identity of the original owners is unknown. The underside of the tankard is nicely engraved with the original scratch weight of 34 troy ounces, 17 pennyweights, and 12 grains. This feature, which is routine on early English silver, is far less common on American examples. This tankard is one of several outstanding pieces of early American silver bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum by Scientific American editor and publisher Charles Allen Munn (1859–1924).

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