Sugar Box

Simeon Soumaine

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rare survivals in early American silver, this pair of octagonal tea caddies and matching sugar box emulate contemporary English design. They also evoke the passion for tea–drinking and its costly accessories that became as fashionable in the Colonies as they were abroad. Each vessel is engraved with the arms and crest of the Bayard family of New York. Although only one tea caddy entered the Metropolitan’s collection in 1964 (64.249.5a,b), the set was reunited in 2015 with the purchase of the matching caddy and sugar box (2015.93.1a,b-2a,b).

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