May 27, 2020 Founders & Patriots
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/27/2020
Leather-covered wooden document box, 6 1/2 x 16 x 9 3/8 inches, by family tradition used by General Artemas Ward during the Revolutionary War and subsequently, as a member of Congress. The leather features extensive tooled and gilded decoration throughout, including a framed diamond surrounding the hinged, steel carrying handle on the lid, which is divided into 4 quadrants, each having a British royal crown / GR device stamped into its center. There is a lock on the front of the device, consisting of a hinged clasp and a keyed plate, both of steel (originally japanned). The box is lined with sheets from some folio-sized, 18th century religious tract, laid down over an earlier hand-painted wall paper. The box is extensively documented and is the title object featured in a 1910 article, "Found in an Old Trunk", on the Artemas Ward Family artifact collection currently featured in this sale. As described by the Reverend Francis E. Clark in the Sept. 1, 1910 issue of "The Christian Endeavor World", "The old trunk itself is worth describing...covered with leather, stamped with the royal crowns and the initials "G.R"...but whether for George I, II, or III, the old trunk does not tell us. Probably, however, it was made in the time of George III, and very likely belonged to a British officer in the early days of the Revolutionary War...At any rate, it came afterwards into the possession of General Artemas Ward...who commanded the American troops before General Washington was put in supreme command of the army....In his militant days, however...it held his dispatches and his necessary personal effects. When he rode fro Shrewsbury to attend the Federal Congress in Philadelphia, to which he was elected from Massachusetts, he went on horseback...and strapped on the horse behind him was this little box." CONDITION: some wear/loss to leather at lower edges and front right, random scuffing and chipping overall; the lid is attached at rear by two pieces of cloth webbing. JLK
Provenance: General Artemas Ward and by descent in the Ward-Brigham Family until 2012; private collection to present.
Paperwork
Documentation/Photo