Covered Sauce Tureen

Covered Sauce Tureen

Edward Lownes

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This pair of sauce tureens exemplifies the elegant simplicity and sophistication of early nineteenth-century American silver. The maker, Edward Lownes, trained under his uncle, the silversmith Joseph Lownes. He would become one of the small group of Philadelphia silversmiths who manufactured objects of superb quality during the first third of the nineteenth century. Edward Lownes’s oeuvre was devoted primarily to tea-, coffee-, and tablewares in the so-called "round style," which was influenced by contemporary French fashions. These sauce tureens are handsome examples of that genre, enhanced by refined die-rolled borders and cast and chased leaf and paw feet. In his later work, primarily from the 1830s, Lownes transitioned to a revived rococo style. He scrupulously kept abreast of the latest fashions. He also played an active role in his profession. He was one of the founders of Philadelphia’s celebrated Franklin Institute, which opened in 1824. He also served as a judge at the Institute’s first "Products of National Industry" exhibition in 1825, an event he himself entered in subsequent years.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.