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Description
A double-handled silver strainer, or "large" punch strainer as contemporary merchants advertised them, was fashionable in Anglo-American culture by the 1760s. The long handle span was practical for a nine or ten-inch diameter punch bowl where the bowl's pierced design would trap the pith and sediment of ingredients added to the intoxicating rum beverage called punch. The maker used a handle design similar to two other Rhode Island silversmiths of his era but personalized the bowl for Moses Brown (1738-1836) of Providence, Rhode Island. Moses Brown was elected to represent the Rhode Island Assembly in April 1765, and by August that body voted a resolution against the Stamp Act. Further research is needed to confirm that the strainer's date is an allusion to the wider political events unraveling in Rhode Island's colonial relationship with Great Britain. A similar strainer marked by Jonathan Clarke and personalized for Jabez Bowen in 1765 is in the Yale University Art Gallery collection.