Silver sugar box

Edward Winslow (1669-1753), Boston

circa 1702

Winslow was an extremely sucessful and renowned silversmith, and, by 1710, a member of the Boston social elite. In form, this sugar box alludes to Renaissance literary ideals of chivalry and courtly love, as well as to folk beliefs in the power of sugar to increase fertility. Its well-documented history also sheds light on the relationship between material culture and politics. The box was made as a gift for Daniel Oliver, whose son Peter went on to become the Chief Justice of Massachusetts Bay Colony. A Tory and loyalist, when the revolution came Peter fled Boston with the British garrison to England. He was able to take only a handful of his possessions along, one of which was his parents' sugar box. Following his departure, the family's grand house in Middleborough was sacked and burned as a hated symbol of Tory power and British rule.