Rogers & Wendt Antique Coin Silver Gravy Boat, Boston, MA, 1854-59, retailed by Hyde & Goodrich, New Orleans, LA

Bands of applied beading and Greek-key decorate the graceful border of this magnificent gravy boat. An attached scroll handle has a lion head thumb-piece and leaf decoration. Three bold feet have lion masks resembling stone sculptures with fur legs and paw feet.

While we have been able to document Rogers & Wendt's relationship with many retailers in the Northeast and California, this is the first example we have seen documenting that relationship with a major Southern retailer, in this case, Hyde & Goodrich of New Orleans.

John Rudolph Wendt is well known today as Ball, Black & Co.'s principal silversmith, working much like John & Edward Moore did with Tiffany & Co. before they were subsumed by Tiffany in 1869. However, very little is known of Wendt's formative years in Boston. After arriving from Germany, he quickly gained a reputation as a highly-skilled designer and chaser (1) and soon was a partner with Augustus Rogers, a seasoned silversmith who wholesaled his silver to many local retail firms. (2) In Leading Pursuits and Leading Men (1856), Edwin T. Freedley notes that Rogers and Wendt: "are said to be the largest exclusive manufacturers of hollow silver-ware in Boston, and probably in the Union…they are prepared to receive orders from all parts of the United States, and execute them with fidelity and dispatch." (3)

For an article with the marks of Rogers & Wendt, see here. This article pictures the Eagle mark with three arrows used by Rogers and Wendt that is on this gravy boat.

This wonderful gravy boat is marked with Rogers & Wendt's eagle mark along with the retailer 'HYDE & GOODRICH/ NEW ORLEANS, LA/ COIN.' It measures 7.25 inches long by 4 inches wide by 6 inches high to the top of the handle, weighs an impressive 16.20 troy ounces, has never been monogrammed and is in very good/ excellent antique condition with small scratch on 1 side.

Endnotes:  

1. Edwin T. Freedley, Leading Pursuits and Leading Men: A Treatise on the Principal Trades and Manufactures of the United States, showing the Progress, State and Prospects of Business…, (Philadelphia: Edward Young, 1856), p. 397.
2. Freedley, p. 397.
3. Freedley, p. 397.