Fine American Coin (.900) Silver Presentation Pitcher

dated 1841, by Gale, Wood & Hughes, New York, New York, of inverted pear form, decorated with elaborate repousse rococo cartouches of neoclassical architecture, with a repousse acanthus-form calyx below and milled leaf-and-berry band above, the flaring collar with integral spout engraved with flowers and rococo scrolls, with melon-knopped crested scroll handle, the whole raised above a knopped and domed foot en suite, the cartouche engraved with a presentation inscription "to Capt. Rich'd. B. Cleland / of British Steamer / Britannia" from the passengers of his May 1841 voyage from Liverpool to Boston".
h. 15-1/2", l. 10-1/2", dia. 7", 44.30 t. oz.

Notes: The Britannia was the first ship of the Cunard line, whose maiden voyage was in July 1840. The trip ushered in the age of the luxury ocean liner, at the forefront of which Cunard would remain for the next hundred years. Glasgow-born Captain Richard B. Cleland (1809-1891) was not at the helm of that voyage, though he did captain Cunard's second ship, the Caledonia on her maiden voyage of the same route in September 1840. He was evidently seconded to the Britannia by the spring of the following year, when twenty-one of his passengers were signatories on this magnificent pitcher, an elegant artifact of the earliest days of luxury sea travel. (Though there were those who were not so impressed; see the recollections of the Britannia's most famous - and most famously miserable - passenger, Charles Dickens, whose January 1842 crossing on the steamship is covered in comical detail in his American Notes.)