Object Number 2018.0015.001

Object Name

Sleeve button (Cuff link)

Category

Jewelry

Credit Line/Donor

Museum purchase with funds drawn from the Centenary Fund

Creator (Role)

John Bayly Sr. (Maker)
1725-October 1789

John Bayly Jr. (Maker)
1752-3/1806

Place of Origin

Probably Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Mid-Atlantic, United States, North America

Date

Septermber 25, 1831 (1780-1800)

Mark or Signature or Inscription or Label

1. Mark; Underside; "I.B" in rectangle, stamped on each button
2. Inscription; Surface; “HW” in sprigged initials, engraved
3. Inscription; Underside; “In Memoriam Hannah Wager." engraved
4. Inscription; Underside; "25 Sept 1831." engraved

Subjects

Memorial; Death

Materials

Gold

Techniques

Engraved

Dimensions (inches)

0.4375 (H) , 0.625 (L)

Dimensions (centimeters)

1.111 (H) , 1.587 (L)

Measurement Notes

14 karat gold; the four buttons and links together weigh 3.3 dwt. troy

Object Description

Web - 12/01/2023

Delicate linked sleeve buttons are a subtle sign of sartorial extravagance when made in gold. Linked buttons used as fasteners for front closures, collars, and cuffs were an enduring and non-gendered fashion from the late 1600s to the early 1800s. This pair retains a family identity with a date as well as a maker’s mark. The sprigged style of the initials “HW” and the regular, angular, or feathered border align with silversmith and jewelry work produced in Philadelphia by both elder and younger John Bayly. Their workshop made and imported buttons but John Bayly, Jr. (1752-1806) later moved to New Castle County, Delaware.

Genealogical research indicates that the engraved HW initials belong to Hannah Wirtz Wager (1762-1831). She was a woman likely to have owned such stylish “smalls” made around 1780-90 by the Baylys. Hannah was the only daughter of Margaretha and Christian Wirtz of Lancaster. Her father’s will mentions that Hannah and her husband Philip Wager (1748-1813) supported him in Philadelphia for the last two decades of his life. During that span, she and Philip also reared at least 11 children, ten of whom survived including one from his first marriage. Portraits of Hannah and Philip Wagers were painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1802, but Hannah is not wearing visible gold buttons.

Not much is recorded about her public life. Philip was a prominent Anglo-German wine and spirits merchant who actively participated in local government, invested in insurance, canal and turnpike companies, and helped start the effort to build a bridge over the Delaware River at Trenton. The Wagers’ business and social activities connected them to families of historic record in Lancaster and Philadelphia. Following Philip’s death in 1813 Hannah’s name appears rarely in her sons’ correspondence but she likely was the matriarch for their large Philadelphia household. When Hannah died in 1831 her children, perhaps the daughter also named Hannah, inherited these special gold buttons engraved with her initials (the “W” either for Wirtz or Wager). In 1831 or soon afterward an engraver added the commemorative name and date transforming them into memorial mementos.

Remarkably in 2018 these gold buttons were intercepted by silver dealer Bill Inslee on their way to a metals smelter.