Coin Silver Goblet Southern General John Smith Preston S. Carolina Carrington #1

Description

Goblet of Southern General John Smith Preston South Carolina Carrington #1
This is one of 5 goblets. If you are interested in all of them let us know. The short version is they belonged to John Smith Preston of Columbia, South Carolina who was an extremely wealthy Southern General , (please see wikipedia),  and in my opinion were made by William Carrington of Charleston South Carolina. It has a hand raised body on a hammered base with a plain band foot. In excellent condition.
It weighs approximately 5.4 troy oz. or 167.2 grams.
It measures 5 ¼” tall, 2 15/16” in diameter at the mouth, and the base is 2 ¾” in diameter.
Provenance: About 40 years ago I purchased an essentially identical goblet, no doubt from the same set, from a direct descendant of John Smith Preston. At that time I learned that he always had his silver monogrammed with an Old English “JSP”, on some pieces it was engraved on other pieces it was applied as a monogram, a more expensive method of monogramming, rarely seen on American silver. There is a small King’s Pattern ladle by Hayden & Gregg with an applied Old English “JSP” in the Hampton-Preston House today.
About 35 years ago a set of five or six of these goblets were sold at an Eastern auction, which I missed, without knowledge of their past, I believe these are the same, as they were purchased from an Eastern dealer who also did not know of their history.
John Smith Preston died in 1881, his silver was not listed as his wife inherited everything. The estate inventory of Preston’s wife in 1883 lists 16 goblets. Unfortunately it does not break down values, only identifying the total value for all  silver as being ,000, probably just the silver value, to be divided among two surviving daughters. Normally it would be impossible to say all 16 were alike. However since one of these is engraved with an 11, it seems reasonable to presume at least 12 once existed and probably 16. At that time evidently the set was broken up. These 5 are different from the single one, in that they are slightly more worn. They also have a scratch engraved “F” on the underside of each and one, NOT THIS ONE, is engraved with a wriggle work HWF.
Preston’s youngest daughter married Henry William Frost. I think the scratch engraved F was probably a method to determine which pieces were chosen in the division of Mrs. Preston’s estate. The HWF was probably added at that time or later by Henry William Frost or his son of the same name. In any case I absolutely guarantee they originally belonged to John Smith Preston.
The body is hand raised which makes them likely to be somewhat earlier than a spun body, probably before 1850, although it really depends on the maker, and location. Some hammer marks are still slightly visible on the inside on some of them. The interior is gilt which is unusual in American silver of the period. They are unmarked but I believe I have determined the maker.
You will notice that the cup has a narrow band below the lip of small beads. W. Carrington used a similar band on most of his cups and beakers, the beads being much smaller than usual. While I was just going from photographs I believe the number of beads is the same as known pieces of Carrington silver, I count 23 beads to the inch on these goblets. Of course Carrington could have sold his beaded band to other silversmiths or purchased them from another supplier.  I have looked at a number of his pieces. He was a quite talented engraver, or had one working for him. He seemed quite inventive in his use of different engraving styles. On these goblets I noticed what I would call double and triple wriggle work, meaning not just a single line of wriggle work but putting three together to form vines borders or leaves. I don’t remember ever seeing this before. I checked on line, and found one other example on a Carrington beaker sold by Sotheby’s.
Of course [W. Carrington] is the only mark he was known to use, and there is no place that mark would fit on these goblets, nor most goblets. This would explain why I could find no marked Carrington goblets.  This reminds me of a painting I sent off to auction which lacked a signature. The auctioneer asked if it was signed and I said “it is signed all over”; he agreed, as did the buyer. Unless someone knows more about SC silver than I do, which is possible, I would almost guarantee they were made by Carrington or at least came from his shop. One authority on SC silver said that a citizen of Columbia would not purchase silver from a Charleston silversmith. In this case I doubt it was easy to find another silversmith capable of producing these. Since they are hand raised and made, they vary slightly in weight.
A bit on the style and rarity: I wrote an article on construction techniques for Silver Magazine. I think it is important to realize something about goblets in the early 19th c. in America. Depending on the location, around about the year 1800 sheet silver became available. This made making beakers, cans, and julep cups much cheaper than the hand raised method used until that time.  The new sheet silver did not help to make goblets, which still had to be hand raised, or at least partially hand raised, because of the more complicated shape.
So if a client wanted a present for someone he could give a nice heavy seamed julep cup, or a rather expensive hand raised goblet. Goblets were not common until about 1850 when technology stepped in. About that time silver items started to be spun. This was a much cheaper method of making silver, as seamed beakers were. So about that time goblets became common for presents and especially agricultural awards.
We usually try to under sell items as we think quality sells itself. But in this case I really think the quality needs to be pointed out. I have dealt and collected expensive European silver for decades. These are one of the few pieces of American silver we have seen that are unrivaled by European examples. Due to the fact they are hand raised, gilded inside, and beautifully decorated, we think they are worth the price, not to mention their belonging to a Southern General. We also think that General Preston knew exactly what he wanted and didn’t care what it cost. It’s impossible for pictures to do them justice.
If anyone is interested in all five let us know, we would save on the commission fee and could pass the savings to you.
I have been told that Carrington used more than one mark, which is interesting but does not change the provenance of ownership, or my opinion of the maker which I believe is obvious.
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