A new auction record for American silver was set on January 22 at Sotheby’s when a silver punch bowl by Cornelius Kierstede, made in New York between 1700 and 1710, sold for $5,906,500. With a presale estimate of $400/800,000, the bowl opened for bidding by auctioneer David Redden at $275,000, and almost instantly a bid of $500,000 was called out by Ian Irving of Ian Irving Ltd. As many as six different bidders raised their paddles, but at around $3 million the battle was reduced to two determined clients, an anonymous gentleman seated in the room and New York dealer S.J. Shrubsole.

The competition continued for several minutes before the winning bid was cast by the anonymous purchaser in the room, bringing the gavel down to rousing applause. The final price of $5.9 million is more than seven times the previous record for American silver, and is the second highest price ever paid for any piece of silver at auction.

The bowl has descended in the family of Commodore Joshua Loring, whose stately home in Jamaica Plain, Mass., the Loring-Greenough House, has been preserved as a historic site. A Royalist, Loring abandoned his residence in August 1774 to take refuge in Boston, and the family emigrated to London in 1776. According to tradition, the bowl was hidden in a well on the property during the Revolution. Retrieved by the family, it descended quietly with them in England, completely unknown, until the owners sent a grainy photograph to Sotheby’s London silver department in March 2009.

The punch bowl was included in Sotheby’s sale of important Americana, which continued on January 23. A full review of the sale will appear in a future issue.