Here’s an interesting “find” for the family collection. It seems that there’s a Silver Cream Jug by Tobias Stoutenburgh. It’s quite a beautiful piece.
An extremely rare creamer crafted by American silversmith Tobias Stoutenburgh. Once part of the Darling Collection of American silver and recently auctioned at Christie’s, this lovely jug was once owned by the prominent Douw family of New York. Featuring a shaped crenellated spout, double scroll handle, and three shell-capped legs, the pear-shaped form was later engraved C.D.D. to C.D.T., Jan. 1847, while the base features the engraved monogram CDG, along with scratchweight marks 5 oz. 4p. Displays maker’s mark.
4″ wide x 4″ high
Circa 1730
Tobias Stoutenburgh remains a bit of a mystery among colonial American silversmiths. Born in 1700, he was part of an old New Amsterdam family who were well-known for being stalwart patriots. The Stoutenburgh manor house in Hyde Park was a conspicuous object visible from the river for a long distance and was the target of British gun boat bombardment on their way to burn Kingston. Fortunately, the elevation of the British smooth-boats was insufficient to do much more damage than to put one twenty-four pound cannonball through the lower panel of the westerly Dutch door, graze the floor, and exit the opposite Dutch door into a sand bank just beyond. Another shot by the same gun missed the house by a hair and landed nearby. One smaller six pound shot was equally unsuccessful and with the other two was recovered and kept as trophies by the family.
Captain Petrus Douw (1692-1775) m. 1717 Anna van Rensselaer (1696-1758). By descent to Catherine Douw Gansevoort, great grand-daughter (1783-1848), m. 1811 Johannes de Peyster Douw, grandson (1756-1835)Catherine Louisa Douw, daughter (1817-1891) m. 1836 John Townsend (1809-1874) Catherine Douw Townsend, daughter (b. 1842) m. 1872 Bankson Taylor Morgan, Townsend Morgan, son (b. 1873)
John Daley, New York, by purchase from Mrs. Townsend Morgan, circa 1958.
The first Douw in New York was Volckert Jansen Douw who emigrated in 1637 from Leeuwarden. His brother was Gerard Douw, the famous Dutch genre painter. Volckert Douw first settled in Rensselaerwyck and quickly became a major landowner in the Albany area, purchasing land from the Indians. He married Dorothe van Breestede in 1650 and they had eleven children who married into other prominent New York Dutch families including the Gansevoorts, Van Cortlandts, and Quackenbushes.
Reference:
The Darling Foundation of New York State Early American Silversmiths and Silver, New York State Silversmiths, 1964, illus. p. 168.
Provenance:
A silver cann by Jacob Ten Eyck, also engraved with the Douw coat-of-arms, is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It bears the monogram ID, for Jonas Douw, father to Captain Petrus Douw.