In the early decades of the new republic, as Americans from every state in the union were called to serve their country, many began to settle in the shadow of the nation’s capital. These elected officials and their families sought to purchase well-appointed homes and furnishings for their new surroundings. These new arrivals were served by a growing body of Washington-area mercantile establishments and craftspeople who prospered in their wake.
Charles Alexander Burnett was among the most prominent silversmiths to serve this burgeoning population during the early federal years. Due to the similarities of Burnett’s work to silver produced in Philadelphia and particularly Baltimore, Jennifer Goldsborough has conjectured that Burnett received his training in the Mid-Atlantic region and later used his early craft relationships to purchase milled bands and other decorative elements from these more active silversmithing centers.
Burnett worked in Alexandria, Virginia, by the 1790s and shortly thereafter moved to Washington, D.C., where his work was in demand in government circles. He made a skippet that housed the seal for the Treaty of Ghent, many domestic services, presentation silver, and Indian trade silver. His patrons included George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Henry Clay.
The Neoclassical style of this service, with its elliptical form and narrow bands of stamped gadrooning, was popular throughout the eastern seaboard from about 1790 to 1825. The engraved initials “BW” on the teapot body have been ascribed to Bushrod Washington, who trained as a lawyer and worked in Alexandria, Virginia. He married Julia Ann Blackburn in 1785 and moved to Richmond in 1790. Washington was appointed associate justice to the Supreme Court by President John Adams in 1798. Given the dates of Washington’s career, his marriage date, and his Alexandria origins, the tea service could have been made by Burnett shortly after he began working on his own, or later, when both men were working in the capital. Twelve goblets engraved with the family arms were also made for Bushrod Washington by Burnett and date to the same period.
These two pieces are linked by the monogram of its original owner, but their dissimilar styles indicate that they may have been made at different dates or assembled from two services. The distinctive looped handle of the creamer is stylistically similar to one on a coffeepot by Burnett that is dated 1795. The engraved cartouche of the teapot is closely related to one found on another service dated 1815 – 25 and bearing the initials “L. B. B.” As the taste of the period favored increasingly larger services for display on sideboards and entertaining, the teapot and creamer may have originally been accompanied by a sugar bowl and waste bowl, as in the service made by Burnett for Richard Cutts.

This text has been adapted from "Silver of the Americas, 1600-2000," edited by Jeannine Falino and Gerald W.R. Ward, published in 2008 by the MFA. Complete references can be found in that publication.

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