Tea Tray

John McMullin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The yellow fever epidemics of 1793 and 1798 devastated the city of Philadelphia, killing thousands and forcing many to flee what was then the nation’s capital and largest city. Among those who remained behind to tend the stricken was Dr. Philip Syng Physick, “the father of American surgery.” For his exceptional dedication and self-sacrifice, the board of managers of the City Hospital presented him with these two magnificent pieces of silver—a tea tray and a hot-water urn—fashioned in the Neoclassical style, with bright-cut paterae and floral festoons. Each piece is engraved with the dedicatory inscription “From the Board of Managers of the Marine & City Hospitals to Philip Syng Physick, M.D., this Mark of their respectful approbation of his voluntary and inestimable services as Resident Physician at the City Hospital in the Calamity of 1798.”

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