Dutch silver tea caddies
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Pair of Dutch silver tea caddies
Alger Mensma
Amsterdam, 1751
503 grams in total; 14,3 cm high
The pear-shaped body is fluted into four panels that continue into the circular base and concave neck. The shoulders are bordered by finely engraved scrolling foliage. Both caddies are also engraved with a mirror monogram with crown. The detachable covers are moulded in the shape of an upright rocaille ornament. Fully marked at the reverse and displaying an assay stripe.
The pair of tea caddies is engraved with mirror monograms. It can be concluded that both caddies used to form a pair. Both bear the same date letter, and the hallmarking was done in a similar way at the reverse. The difference in weight of 1 gram is negligible. In the 20th century, however, both tea caddies had another provenance. Probably due to a division of family property the caddies were dispersed. In 1960 one tea caddy appeared on the Dutch art market and the other tea caddy was auctioned in London in 1976. It was the observant collector who first bought one beautiful tea caddy in 1960 and years later, in 1976, came across and bought the second one.
Alger Mensma (Leeuwarden 1682- Leeuwarden after 1757), is considered to be one of the leading silversmiths in Amsterdam during the first half of the 18th century. Alger was trained as a silversmith in his father Nicolaas’s workshop in Leeuwarden. Besides, he was trained by the well-known chaser Jurriaen Pool, as his father was in 1658. However, Alger went to Amsterdam, where he married Elisabeth Steenstraat in 1709. In 1710 he became poorter (burgher) of Amsterdam and became a member of the Amsterdam silversmiths’ guild. His father Nicolaas Mensma was a so-called service worker, as Alger was too. In 1730 Alger remarried. After his second marriage to Sara van der Weide, the couple lived at Buiksloot. Alger Mensma stayed and worked in Amsterdam. Thereafter he returned to Leeuwarden, where he died after 1757. Alger Mensma’s maker’s mark, ‘a wild man with a club’, was derived from the family coat-of-arms.
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